"But, Bell, if the sport does not amuse me!" Margaret would answer. "If I want to kill something, I would rather kill spiders, though I am trying not to be so afraid of them—or mosquitoes."
Then the girls would cry out that she was hopeless, and would gather up their reels and rods and leave her to her own peaceful devices, having even the generosity not to twit her with inconsistency when she enjoyed her delicately-fried perch at supper.
These solitary afternoons were sure to be pleasant ones for Margaret. She loved the merry companionship of the campers, but she loved, too, to wander through the woods, among the great straight-stemmed pines and dark feathery hemlocks, or to track the little clear brook through its windings, from the great bog to its outlet into the lake; or, as now, to stroll about over the great down, looking down on the blue water below.
It was a perfect afternoon. Little white clouds drifted here and there over the tops of the wooded hills, but they only made the sky more deeply and intensely blue. There was just enough breeze to ripple the water so that it caught every sunbeam, and set it dancing on the tremulous surface. Below her a fish-hawk poised and dipped, seeking his dinner; far out, two black specks showed where her friends were at their "sport." Margaret drew a long breath of content.
"Oh, pleasant place!" she said. "How glad I am that I am not in that boat. Oh, pleasant place!"
She looked about her with happy eyes. Before her, the earth fell away in an abrupt descent to the lake, steep enough to be dignified by the name of precipice; but behind and on either hand it rolled away in billowy slopes of green, crowned here and there with patches of wood, and crossed by irregular lines of stone wall.
"Oh, pleasant place!" said Margaret a third time. "How many beautiful places I know! What a wonderful world of beauty it is!"
Her mind went back to Fernley House, the beloved home where she lived with her uncle John Montfort: to the rose-garden, where they loved to work together, the sunny lawns, the shady alleys of box and laurel, the arbors of honeysuckle and grape-vine. She could almost see the beloved uncle, pruning-knife in hand, bending over his roses; if only he did not cut back the Ramblers too far! She could almost see her little cousins, her children, as she called them, Basil and Susan D., running about with their butterfly-nets, shouting and calling to each other. Did they think of her, as she hourly thought of them? Did Uncle John miss her? She must always miss him, no matter how happy she might be with other friends. A wave of homesickness ran through her, and brought the quick tears to her eyes; but she brushed them away with an indignant little shake of her head.
"Goose!" she said. "When will you learn that it is a physical impossibility to be in two places at once? You don't want to leave this beautiful place and these dear people yet? Of course, you don't! Well, then, don't behave so! But all the same, it would be good to hear Uncle John's voice!"
At this moment she heard,—not the beloved voice for which she longed,—but certainly a sound, breaking the stillness of the afternoon; a sound made neither by wind nor water. It did not sound like a bird, either; nor—a beast?