“We have changed places, Angelique, dear,” the child often said. “It used to be you who was always croaking and looking for trouble. Now you see only brightness.”
“Well, good sooth. ’Tis a long lane has no turnin’, and better late nor never. Sometimes ’tis well to say, ‘Stay, good trouble, lest worser comes,’ eh? But things’ll mend. They must. Now, run and climb the tree. It might be this ver’ minute that wretch, Pierre, was on his way across the lake. Pouf! but he’ll stir his lazy bones, once he touches this shore! Yes, yes, indeed. Run and hail him, maybe.”
So Margot had gone, again and again, and had returned to sit beside her uncle’s bed, anxious and watchful.
Often, also, she had paddled across the narrows and made her way swiftly to a little clearing on her uncle’s land, where, among giant trees, old Joseph Wills, the Indian guide, and faithful friend of all on Peace Island, made one of his homes. Once Mr. Dutton had nursed this red man through a dangerous illness, and had kept him in his old home for many weeks thereafter. He would have been the very nurse they now needed, in their turn, could he have been found. But his cabin was closed, and on its doorway, under the family sign-picture of a turtle on a rock, he had printed, in dialect, what signified his departure for a long hunting trip.
Now, as Angelique advised, she resolved to try once more; and, hurrying to the shore, pushed her canoe into the water and paddled swiftly away. She had taken the neglected Reynard with her, and Tom had invited himself to be a party of the trip; and in the odd but sympathetic companionship Margot’s spirits rose again.
“It must be as Angelique says. The long lane will turn. Why have I been so easily discouraged? I never saw my precious uncle ill before, and that is why I have been so frightened. I suppose anybody gets thin and says things when there is fever. But he’s troubled about something. He wants to do something that neither of us understand. Unless—oh! I believe I do understand. My head is clearer out here on the water, and I know, I know! It is just about the time of year when he goes away on those long trips of his. And we’ve been so anxious we never remembered. That’s it. Surely it is. Then, of course, Joe will be back now or soon. He always stays on the island when uncle goes, and he’ll remember. Oh! I’m brighter already, and I guess, I believe, it is as Angelique claims—God won’t take away so good a man as uncle and leave me alone. Though I am not alone. I have a father! I have a father somewhere, if I only knew—all in good time—and I’m growing gladder and gladder every minute.”
She could even sing to the stroke of her paddle, and she skimmed the water with increasing speed. Whatever the reason for her growing cheerfulness, whether the reaction of youth or a prescience of happiness to come, the result was the same; she reached the further shore flushed and eager-eyed, more like the old Margot than she had been for many days.
“Oh! he’s there. He is at home. There is smoke coming out of the chimney. Joseph! Oh, Joseph! Joseph!”
She did not even stop to take care of her canoe, but left it to drift whither it would. Nothing mattered, Joseph was at home. He had canoes galore, and he was help indeed.
She was quite right. The old man came to his doorway and waited her arrival with apparent indifference, though surely no human heart could have been unmoved by such unfeigned delight. Catching his unresponsive hands in hers, she cried: