With my mind on Gillespie I put off in the launch, determined to study the lake geography. A mile from the pier I looked back and saw, rising above the green wood, the gray lines of Glenarm house; and farther west the miniature tower of the little chapel of St. Agatha's thrust itself through the trees. To the east lay Annandale village; to the northwest the summer colony of Port Annandale. I swung the boat toward the unknown north of this pretty lake, watching meanwhile its social marine—if I may use such a term—with new interest. Several smart sail-boats lounged before the wind—more ambitious craft than I imagined these waters boasted; the lake "tramps" on their ceaseless errands to and from the village whistled noisily; we passed a boy and girl in a canoe—a thing so pretty and graceful and so clean-cut in its workmanship that I turned to look after it. The girl was lazily plying the paddle; the boy, supported by a wealth of gay cushions, was thrumming a guitar. They glared at me resentfully as their cockle-shell wobbled in the wash of the launch.
"That's a better canoe than we own, Ijima. I should like to pick up one as good."
"There are others like it on the lake. Hartridge is the maker. His shop is over there somewhere," and Ijima waved his hand toward the north. "A boy told me at the Annandale dock that those canoes are famous all over this country."
"Then we must certainly have one. We could have used one of those things in Russia."
The shores grew narrower and more irregular as we proceeded, and we saw only at rare intervals any signs of life. A heavy forest lay at either hand, broken now and then by rough meadows. Just beyond a sharp curve a new vista opened before us, and I was astonished to see a small wooded island ahead of us. Beyond it lay the second lake, linked to the main body of Annandale by a narrow strait.
"I did not know there was anything so good on the lake, Ijima. I wonder what they call this?"
He reached into a locker and drew out a tin tube.
"This is a map, sir. I think they call this Battle Orchard."
"That's not bad, either. I don't see the orchard or the battle, but no doubt they have both been here." I was more and more pleased.
I gave him the wheel and took the map, which proved to be a careful chart of the lake, made, I judged, by my friend Glenarm for his own amusement. We passed slowly around the island, which was not more than twenty acres in extent, with an abrupt bank on the east and a low pebbly shore on the west, and a body of heavy timber rising darkly in the center. The shore of the mainland sloped upward here in the tender green of young corn. I have, I hope, a soul for landscape, and the soft bubble of water, the lush reeds in the shallows, the rapidly moving panorama of field and forest, the glimpses of wild flowers, and the arched blue above, were restful to mind and heart. It seemed shameful that the whole world was not afloat; then, as I reflected that another boat in these tranquil waters would be an impertinence that I should resent, I was aware that I had been thinking of Helen Holbrook all the while; and the thought of this irritated me so that I criticized Ijima most unjustly for running the launch close to a boulder that rose like a miniature Gibraltar near the shadowy shore we were skirting.