Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes. She clapped her hands gaily, and cried: "Welcome, welcome, merry-men all!" She kissed her father; she called to her mother to come and see; then she said to Gregory, with arch raillery, as she held out her hand: "Oh, companion of hunters, comest thou like Jacques in Arden from dropping the trustful tear upon the prey of others, or bringest thou quarry of thine own? Art thou a warrior sated with spoil, master of the sports, spectator of the fight, Prince, or Pistol? Answer, what art thou?"
And he, with a touch of his old insolence, though with something of irony too, for he had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, said:
"All, lady, all! The Olympian all! The player of many parts. I am
Touchstone, Jacques, and yet Orlando too."
"And yet Orlando too, my daughter," said Malbrouck, gravely. "He saved your father from the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice. Had your father his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with one arm a bull moose at long range, so!—he would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but wear the title gladly."
Margaret Malbrouck's face became anxious instantly. "He saved you from danger—from injury, father?" she slowly said, and looked earnestly at Gregory; "but why to shoot with one arm only?"
"Because in a fight of his own with a moose—a hand-to-hand fight—he had a bad moment with the hoofs of the beast."
And this young man, who had a reputation for insolence, blushed, so that the paleness which the girl now noticed in his face was banished; and to turn the subject he interposed:
"Here is the live moose that I said I should bring. Now say that he's a beauty, please. Your father and I—"
But Malbrouck interrupted:
"He lassoed it with his one arm, Margaret. He was determined to do it himself, because, being a superstitious gentleman, as well as a hunter, he had some foolish notion that this capture would propitiate a goddess whom he imagined required offerings of the kind."