“Reynard! Oh! I forgot. I shut him up because he would hang about the house and watch your poor chickens. If he’d stay in his own forest now, I would be so glad. Yet I love him——”
“Aye, and he loves you. Be thankful. Even a beastie’s love is of God’s sending. Go feed him. Here. The wing you’ll not eat yourself.”
There were dark days now on the once sunny island of peace.
That day when Mr. Dutton had said: “Your father is still alive,” seemed now to Margot, looking back, as one of such experiences as change a whole life. Up till that morning she had been a thoughtless, unreflecting child, but the utterance of those fateful words altered everything.
Amazement, unbelief of what her ears told her, indignation that she had been so long deceived—as she put it—were swiftly followed by a dreadful fear. Even while he spoke, the woodlander’s figure swayed and trembled, the hoe-handle on which he rested wavered and fell, and he, too, would have fallen had not the girl’s arms caught and eased his sudden sinking in the furrow he had worked. Her shrill cry of alarm had reached Angelique, always alert for trouble and then more than ever, and had brought her swiftly to the field. Between them they had carried the now unconscious man within and laid him on his bed. He had never risen from it since; nor, in her heart, did Angelique believe he ever would, though she so stoutly asserted to the contrary before Margot.
“We have changed places, Angelique, dear,” the child often said. “It used to be you who was always croaking and looking for trouble. Now you see only brightness.”
“Well, good sooth. ’Tis a long lane has no turnin’, and better late nor never. Sometimes ’tis well to say ‘stay good trouble lest worser comes,’ eh? But things’ll mend. They must. Now, run and climb the tree. It might be this ver’ minute that wretch, Pierre, was on his way across the lake. Pouf! But he’ll stir his lazy bones, once he touches this shore! Yes, yes, indeed. Run and hail him, maybe.”
So Margot had gone, again and again, and had returned to sit beside her uncle’s bed, anxious and watchful.
Often, also, she had paddled across the narrows and made her way swiftly to a little clearing on her uncle’s land, where, among giant trees, old Joseph Wills, the Indian guide and faithful friend of all on Peace Island, made one of his homes. Once Mr. Dutton had nursed this red man through a dangerous illness, and had kept him in his own home for many weeks thereafter. He would have been the very nurse they now needed, in their turn, could he have been found. But his cabin was closed, and on its doorway, under the family sign-picture of a turtle on a rock, he had printed in dialect, what signified his departure for a long hunting trip.
Now, as Angelique advised, she resolved to try once more; and hurrying to the shore, pushed her canoe into the water and paddled swiftly away. She had taken the neglected Reynard with her and Tom had invited himself to be a party of the trip; and in the odd but sympathetic companionship, Margot’s spirits rose again.