This was all Mr Palmer seemed disposed to tell, and, hoping for the best, she tried to share in her host’s affected confidence as to her father’s safety, and followed him in answer to his wife’s call “That supper was ready.” A capital cook, and having a larder to draw from replenished by the gun and rod of her husband, Mrs Palmer, in honor of her guest, had spread a table that contrasted painfully with the meagre fare to which Jeanie was accustomed, and made her think of the mess of boiled corn of which her mother would then be partaking. After supper, the canoe was launched, and bidding farewell to her hostess and her little girl on the river’s bank, Jeanie stepped in, when, propelled by the paddle of Mr Palmer, it began steadily to stem the current.
Who that has undergone the agony of sorrowful apprehension has not noted how every trifling incident that may have occurred during that period has become imprinted indelibly upon the memory? The watcher by the sick-bed, over which death hovers, is puzzled how, at a time when the mind is absorbed with one thought, the perceptions should be so sharpened as to note trivial events and objects, down to the very furniture and pattern of the wallpaper, which on ordinary occasions leave no trace upon the memory. On that April evening Jeanie’s mind was laboring under this intensified acuteness, and while brooding continually over her father’s probable fate, to her dying day she remembered every feature of the scenery she was now passing. The smooth flowing river, swollen and discolored by the melted snow from the hills, hemmed in on either bank by a thick growth of trees, many of which, as if enamored with the beautiful sheet of water by which they grew, bent over it until, in their leafy prime, their branches almost kissed its surface. Now, though leafless, their tops were glorified by the setting sun, which filled the still air with the lambent blue haze which distinguishes the evenings of early spring in Canada. Keeping to the Chateaugay at its union with Trout river, the canoe stole silently beneath the shadow of the overhanging trees until the mouth of Oak creek was reached, when Jeanie stepped ashore to pursue her way on foot to her home. Before bidding her goodbye, Mr Palmer paused and said: “Now, you keep up a good heart for whatever may happen, and we’ll be up tomorrow to search the woods. Give that to your mother and—God bless you.” Without giving her time to say a word, he pushed his canoe into the stream and speedily glided out of sight, leaving Jeanie standing on the bank perplexed by what he had said and holding the basket he had thrust into her hands, which contained a loaf of bread and a string of fish. With a heavier heart than ever, she began to trace her way homeward by the creek. Once in that lonely journey she thought she saw her father walking ahead of her, and once she thought she heard his voice. She called out and paused to listen for a reply. The only sound that reached her was the dismal croakings of the frogs. Knowing that her imagination was deceiving her, she hurried on and, when she caught the first glimpse of light gleaming from her humble home, it outlined her mother’s figure seated on the doorstep waiting her return.
“You hav’na found him, Jeanie?”
“No, mother; and he hasna come hame?”
“What can hae come ower him!” exclaimed the mother, as she sank into a seat by the open fire-place.
It was remarkable that in their conversation no conjecture was hazarded by either as to the probable fate of the missing one. Both, plainly, entertained the same painful surmise, which they were alike ashamed to breathe. They sat by the glowing backlog for many hours, hoping against hope that the wanderer might return, until Jeanie overcome by fatigue sought her bed. Once she awoke during the night, thinking she heard a voice. She listened in the darkness. It was her mother wrestling with God on behalf of her father.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] These rapids were known to old settlers as “Palmer’s rapids.” The quarrying of them for building purposes has greatly changed their appearance.
CHAPTER II.
Early next day Jeanie and her mother saw a short, stout man emerge from the woods. He was a stranger to them, but his aspect indicated he was a lumberman. He had a towsy head of reddish hair and a matted beard and whiskers of the same hue.