IX.
ON Catamount Pond young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an expert fisherman, but the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than fish to him: of it was a barren ridge, from the top of which a broken column of dead pine, like a shaft of wrought marble, towered straight and high above the woods. The curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads, starred here and there with white tufts. Around thickets of birch, on a point of land, a little cove was the end of all the deer-trails that came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the gateway of the pond for all who journeyed thither to eat and drink. There were white columns on either side, and opposite the cove's end was a thicket of tamarack, clear of brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came to the water's edge. When one had rounded the point in his canoe, he could see into those cool, dark alleys of the deer, leading off through slender tamaracks. A little beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain, five hundred' feet above the water.
The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft, leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered straight across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like the cleaving of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below him and flung a cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw his warning loop around the head of the intruder and boomed out of hearing. Those threads of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth, and to connect his soul with the great silence into which they ran.
Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of "the new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to try to make his way in politics.
He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had saved the day for his alma mater more than once on the track and the gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a man with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition and not by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of good-nature that made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some twenty miles away, his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his father were fond of their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They loved better the grand life and the great highways of travel.
Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle which lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his life work but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he would love, had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat, and his dark hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the pond. In a moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove. Two fawns were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with the dignity of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them. The fawns gambolled in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then dashing their muzzles in the cool water. Their red coats were starred white as if with snow-flakes. The deer stood a moment looking at Master, stamped her feet, and retired into one of the dark alleys. In a moment her fawns followed.
Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In the shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty feet from his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit jacket and gray skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of light hair that fell curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a berry, her features of a noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and large, made their potent appeal to the heart of Master. They were like those of his dreams—he could never forget them. So far it's the old story of love at sight—but listen. For half a moment they looked into each other's eyes. Then the girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and disappeared among the columns of white birch.
Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for the landing.
"L-lucky?" Strong asked.
"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."