Edward was almost out of breath as he said all this, and he appeared anxious to go back to the canoe. But Mary had not expected him to join her lonely wanderings, and his solicitude about her safety, so considerate and kind, went to her heart like a breath of summer air. She turned up the mountain-path, lonely and companionless; but very happy. Her eyes were full of pleasant tears, and her heart was like a flower unfolding to the sunshine. There is pleasure in complying with the slightest request from those we love; and Mary confined her ramble to the precipice and the shore, merely because Edward Clark had asked her not to wander far. She saw him land on the island with her sister while half-sitting, half-reclining on a crag of the broken rock, at whose foot she had landed. She saw the boat sent again and again to the opposite shore, returning each time laden with her former companions.
She was aroused by the rustling of branches over her head, followed by a bounding step, as of a deer in flight; then a young girl sprang out upon a point of rock which shot over the platform on which she lay, and bending over the edge gazed eagerly down upon the river.
Mary held her breath and remained motionless, for her poetical fancy was aroused by the singular and picturesque attitude of the figure. There was a wildness and grace in it which she had never witnessed before. At the first glance she supposed the stranger to be a wandering Indian girl belonging to some of the tribes that roamed the neighboring forests. But her complexion, though darker than the darkest brunette of our own race, was still too light for any of the savage nations yet seen in the wilderness. It was of a clear, rich, brown, and the blood glowed through the round cheeks like the blush on a ripe peach.
Her hair was long, profusely braided, and of a deep black; not the dull, lustreless color common to the Indians; but with a bloom upon it like that shed by the sunlight on the wing of a flying raven. She appeared to be neither Indian nor white, but of a mixed race. The spirited and wild grace of the savage was blended with a delicacy of feature and nameless elegance more peculiar to the whites. In her dress, also, might be traced the same union of barbarism and refinement—a string of bright scarlet berries encircling her head, and interwoven with the long braids of her hair, glanced in the sunlight as she moved her head, like a chain of dim rubies.
A robe of gorgeous chintz, where crimson and deep brown were the predominating colors, was confined at the waist by a narrow belt of wampum, and terminated a little below the knee in a double row of heavy fringe, leaving the flexible and slender ankles free and uncovered. Her robe fell open at the shoulders; but the swelling outline of her neck, thus exposed, was unbroken, except by a necklace of cherry-colored cornelian, from which a small heart of the same blood-red stone fell to her bosom. The round and tapering beauty of her arms was fully revealed and unencumbered by a single ornament. Her moccasins were of dressed deer-skin, fringed and wrought with tiny beads, interwoven with a vine of silk buds and leaves done in such needlework as was, in those days, only taught to the most refined and highly educated class of whites. Mary had never seen anything so exquisitely beautiful in its workmanship as that embroidery, or so brightly picturesque as the whole appearance of the stranger.
For more than a minute the wild girl retained the position assumed by her last bounding step. There was something statue-like in the tension of those rounded and slender limbs as she stood on the shelf of rock, bending eagerly over the edge, with her weight thrown on one foot and the other strained back, as if preparing for a spring. All the grace, but not the chilliness, of marble lived in those boldly poised limbs, so full of warm, healthy life. There was spirit and fire in their very repose, for after an eager glance up and down the river she settled back, and with her arms folded remained for a moment in an attitude of dejection and disappointment.
A merry laugh which came ringing over the waters from the island drew her attention to the group of revellers glancing in and out of the shrubbery which surrounded Mother Derwent’s dwelling. Flinging back her hair with a gesture of fiery impatience, she sprang upward and dragged down the branch of a young tree, which she grasped for support while throwing herself still more boldly over the very edge of the cliff.
Mary almost screamed with affright. But there was something grand in the daring of the girl, which aroused her admiration even more than her fear. She knew that the breaking of that slender branch would precipitate her down a sheer descent into the river. But she felt as if the very sound of a human voice would startle her into eternity.
Motionless with dread, she fixed her eyes, like a fascinated bird, on the strange being thus hovering over death, so fearless and so beautiful. All at once those bright, dark eyes kindled, one arm was flung eagerly outward—her red lips parted and a gush of music, like the song of a mocking-bird, but louder and richer, burst from them.
Mary started forward in amazement. Before she could lift her eyes to the cliff again, a low, shrill whistle came sharply up from the direction of the island. She caught one glance of those kindling cheeks and flashing eyes as the strange, wild girl leaped back from the cliff—a gleam of sunlight on her long hair as she darted into a thicket of wild cherry trees—and there was no sign of her remaining, save a rushing sound of the young trees, as the bent limb swayed back to its fellows. Again the notes, as of a wild, eager bird, arose from a hollow bank on the side of the mountain; and, after a moment, that shrill whistle was repeated from the water, and Mary distinctly heard the dipping of an oar.