XIV
THEY were a timely arrival—those new friends who had found Edith Dunmore. She was no longer satisfied with the narrow world in which her father had imprisoned her, and had begun to wander alone as if in quest of a better one. That hour of revelation on the shore of Birch Cove led quickly to others quite as wonderful.
She had no sooner reached home than she told her grandmother of the young man and the children who had come with him to the shore of Catamount and of a strange happiness in her heart. It was then that a sense of duty in the old Scotchwoman broke away from promises to her son which had long suppressed it.
As they sat alone, together, the old lady talked to her granddaughter of the mysteries of life and love and death. Much in this talk the girl had gathered for herself, by inference, out of books—mostly fairy tales that her father had brought to her—and out of the evasions which had greeted her questioning and out of her own heart.
Her queries followed one another fast and were answered freely. She learned, among other things, a part of the reason for their lonely life—that her father was not like other men, not even like himself; that their isolation had been a wicked and foolish error; that men were not, mostly, children of the devil seeking whom they might destroy, but kindly, giving and desiring love; that she, Edith Dunmore, had a right to live like the rest of God's children, and to love and be loved and given in marriage and to have her part in the world's history.
All this and much good counsel besides the old lady gave to the girl who sat a long time pondering after her grandmother had left her.
In the miracle of birth and the storied change that follows dissolution she saw the magic of fairyland. To her Paristan had been much more real than the republic in which she lived.
She longed for the hour to come when she should again see those wonderful children and the still more wonderful being who had brought them in his canoe.
Next morning she set out early in the trail to Catamount with her little guide and companion. She had named him Roc, after the famous bird of Oriental tradition. She arrived there long before the hour appointed. Slowly she wandered to the trail over which Master and the children would be sure to come. She approached the camp at Lost River and stood peering through thickets of young fir, She saw the boy and girl at play, and watched them. Soon Master came out of one of the cabins. Now, somehow, she felt a greater fear of him than before, yet she longed to look into his face—to feel the touch of his hand.
The crow had taken his perch in a small tree beside his mistress. He seemed to be looking thoughtfully at the children, with now and then a little croak of criticism or of amusement, ending frequently in a sound like half-suppressed laughter. He raised a foot and slowly scratched his head, a gaze of meditation deepening in his eyes. Suddenly his interest seemed to grow keener. He moved a step aside, rose in the air, and approached the children. Darting to the ground, he picked up a little silver compass which, one of them had dropped, and quickly returned with it. The children called to Master, and all three followed the crow. His mistress, scarcely knowing why, had run up the trail, and Roc pursued her with foot and wing, croaking urgently, as if his life and spoil depended on their haste. Reaching a thicket beside the trail, she hid under its sheltering cover and sat down to rest. The crow, following, scrambled upon her shoulder and dropped the bit of silver into her lap. She held his beak to keep him quiet when Master and the children came near, but as the latter were passing they could hear the smothered laughter of Roc.