"That's love's leverage," said I.
Then there was silence; for the sun had set and the father was no longer reading. Shadows deepened into twilight, and twilight into gloaming. And it was the hour when the brooding spirit of the vast prairie solitudes fills the stillness of night with voiceless eloquence. Why should I attempt to transcribe the silent music of the prairie at twilight, which every plain-dweller knows and none but a plain-dweller may understand? What wonder that the race native to this boundless land hears the rustling of spirits in the night wind, the sigh of those who have lost their way to the happy hunting-ground, and the wail of little ones whose feet are bruised on the shadow trail? What wonder the gauzy northern lights are bands of marshaling warriors and the stars torches lighting those who ride the plains of heaven? Indeed, I defy a white man with all the discipline of science and reason to restrain the wanderings of mystic fancy during the hours of sunset on the prairie.
There is, I affirm, no such thing as time for lovers. If they have watches and clocks, the wretched things run too fast; and if the sun himself stood still in sympathy, time would not be long. So I confess I have no record of time that night Frances Sutherland returned to her home and Mr. Sutherland kept guard at the door. When he had passed the threshold impatiently twice, I recollected with regret that it was impossible to read theology in the dark. The third time he thrust his head in.
"Mind y'rselves," he called. "I hear men coming frae the river, a pretty hour, indeed, for visitin'. Frances, go ben and see yon back window's open!"
"The soldiers from the fort," cried Frances with a little gasp.
"Don't move," said I. "They can't see me here. It's dark. I want to hear what they say and the window is open. Indeed, Frances, I'm an expert at window-jumping," and I had begun to tell her of my scrape with Louis' drunken comrades in Fort Douglas, when I heard Mr. Sutherland's grating tones according the newcomers a curious welcome. "Ye swearin', blasphemin', rampag'us, carousin' infidel, ye'll no darken my doorway this night. Y'r French gab may be foul wi' oaths for all I ken; but ye'll no come into my hoose! An' you, Sir, a blind leader o' the blind, a disciple o' Beelzebub, wi' y'r Babylonish idolatries, wi' y'r incense that fair stinks in the nostrils o' decent folk, wi' y'r images and mummery and crossin' o' y'rsel', wi' y'r pagan, popish practises, wi' y'r skirts and petticoats, I'll no hae ye on my premises, no, not an' ye leave y'r religion outside! An' you, Meester Hamilton, a respectable Protestant, I'm fair surprised to see ye in sic' company."
"'Tis Eric and Father Holland and Laplante," I shouted, springing to my feet and rushing to the doorway, but Frances put herself before me.
"Keep back," she whispered. "The priest and Mr. Hamilton have been here before; but father would not let them in. The other man may be a De Meuron. Be careful, Rufus! There's a price on your head."
"Ho—ho—my Ursus Major, prime guardian of Ursa Major, first of the heavenly constellations in the north," insolently laughed Louis Laplante through the dusk.
"Let me pass, Frances," I begged, thrusting her gently aside, but her trembling hands still clung to my arm.