“His wife!” cried Jane, with a magnificent curve of the lip, and a lift of the head that Juno might have envied. “What does an Indian wife amount to in the law?”
“A great deal, if she has been married by the law.”
“But I don’t believe one word of that; Butler isn’t such a fool; he only said it to torment me, to—to—”
Jane lost herself here, for the keen look which Grandmother Derwent turned upon her brought caution with it.
“Well, gals, what on earth are you talking about? I don’t want the name of that Tory captain mentioned under my cabin roof. His place is with the Wintermoots, the Van Garders, and Van Alstyns—birds of a feather flock together. While I live, the man that makes himself friends with the off-scouring from York State had better keep clear of Monockonok Island.”
Jane bit her lips with vexation, but she said nothing; for when the old woman waxed patriotic there was no opposing her, and even the beautiful favorite feared to urge the conversation farther.
Mother Derwent stepped to the door, and shading her eyes with one hand, looked up and down the river. Her kind old heart was distressed at the idea of the missionary going away without his breakfast. She saw his canoe at last gliding along the opposite shore and turned briskly around.
“There he is, neither out of sight nor hearing yet. Mary, run upstairs and shake a white cloth out of the garret window. You, Jane, bring me the tin dinner-horn. I’ll give him a blast that shall bring him back, depend on’t.”
Mary ran to make the signal, and Jane took down a long tin dinner-horn from behind the door, which Mother Derwin blew vigorously, rising on tiptoe, and sending blast after blast upon the water, as if she had been summoning an army. The missionary heard the sound, and saw Mary with her white signal at the window. He waved his hand two or three times, sat down again, and directly disappeared in a bend of the shore.
Mary watched him with a heavy heart. It seemed as his canoe was lost to her sight that half her life had departed forever, and he, looking mournfully back, saw the snowy signal floating from the window, with a gush of tender sorrow. It was like the wing of an angel unfurling itself with vain efforts to follow him.