Still less might Woodley Poindexter strain the statutes of parental authority—the father of a Creole belle—for years used to that proud homage whose incense often stills, or altogether destroys, the simpler affections of the heart.
Though her father, and by law her controller, he knew to what a short length his power might extend, if exerted in opposition to her will. He was, therefore, satisfied with her late act of obedience—rejoiced to find that instead of continuing her reckless rides upon the prairie, she now contented herself within the range of the garden—with bow and arrow slaying the small birds that were so unlucky as to come under her aim.
Father of fifty years old, why reason in this foolish fashion? Have you forgotten your own youth—the thoughts that then inspired you—the deceits you practised under such inspiration—the counterfeits you assumed—the “stories” you told to cloak what, after all, may have been the noblest impulse of your nature?
The father of the fair Louise appeared to have become oblivious to recollections of this kind: for his early life was not without facts to have furnished them. They must have been forgotten, else he would have taken occasion to follow his daughter into the garden, and observe her—himself unobserved—while disporting herself in the shrubbery that bordered the river bank.
By doing so, he would have discovered that her disposition was not so cruel as may have been supposed. Instead of transfixing the innocent birds that fluttered in such foolish confidence around her, her greatest feat in archery appeared to be the impaling of a piece of paper upon the point of her arrow, and sending the shaft thus charged across the river, to fall harmlessly into a thicket on the opposite side.
He would have witnessed an exhibition still more singular. He would have seen the arrow thus spent—after a short interval, as if dissatisfied with the place into which it had been shot, and desirous of returning to the fair hand whence it had taken its departure—come back into the garden with the same, or a similar piece of paper, transfixed upon its shaft!
The thing might have appeared mysterious—even supernatural—to an observer unacquainted with the spirit and mechanism of that abnormal phenomenon. There was no observer of it save the two individuals who alternately bent the bow, shooting with a single arrow; and by them it was understood.
“Love laughs at locksmiths.” The old adage is scarce suited to Texas, where lock-making is an unknown trade.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” expresses pretty much the same sentiment, appropriate to all time and every place. Never was it more correctly illustrated than in that exchange of bow-shots across the channel of the Leona.
Louise Poindexter had the will; Maurice Gerald had suggested the way.