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The rest of the congregation comprised Mr. Trask, seated stiff and solitary in the largest pew, Mrs. Strongtharm, and half a score of children whom Mrs. Strongtharm had collected on the way and against her will. They followed her by habit, after goodies; but just now, though they sat quiet, her reputation was suffering from a transient distrust. Mr.
Strongtharm seated and polishing his gun, and paused to catechise him on the forest tracks, particularly on those leading up through Soldier's Gap by which name he called the gorge at the head of the plain. "The best track beyond, you'll find, lies pretty close 'longside the river," he said. "But 'tis no road for the mare. I doubt if a mule could manage it after the third mile.
Through and beyond her answering wail, as she laid her head on the pillow, she heard the lost feet, the small betrayed feet, pattering away into darkness. When she grew stronger, it consoled her a little to talk with Mrs. Strongtharm; not confiding her regrets and self-reproaches, but speculating much on this great book of Maternity into which she had been given a glimpse. The metaphor was Mrs.
Josselin sits in an armchair, regarding the pattern of the carpet with a silly air of self-importance; Mrs. Strongtharm in a chair opposite. By the window Miss Quiney, pulling at her knuckles, stares out through the dark panes. A clock strikes. Four o'clock . . . nine hours. . . . Mrs. Strongtharm. More. The pains took her soon after six. . . . When her bell rang I looked at the clock. I remember.
He was a trapper, and a famous one, but before my time; an' that was his headquarters a sort o' cabin, pretty stout, just by the head in the sixth fall, or maybe 'tis the seventh I forget. He lived up there without wife or family " Mr. Strongtharm would have launched into further particulars about the dead trapper, whose skill and strange habits had passed into a legend in the valley.
Strongtharm, unable to write, responded valiantly. She arrived in a cart, with Mrs. Josselin at her side; and straightway alighting and neglecting Mrs. Josselin, sailed into a seventh heaven of womanly fuss. She examined the baby-clothes critically. "Made with your own pretty hands and with all this mort o' servants tumblin' over one another to help ye.
I fancied it, too a feeble one. Mrs. Something is wrong. . . . As she goes to listen at the door, it opens, and the man-midwife enters. His face is grave. Mrs. Strongtharm and Miss Quiney ask him together, under their breath Well? He answers: It is well. We have saved her life, I trust. And the child? A boy. It lived less than a minute. . . . Yet a shapely child. . . .
A week later they broke camp and set forth to climb to the head of the pass. Behind it so Sir Oliver had learnt from old Strongtharm lay an almost flat table-land, of pine-forest for the most part, through which for maybe half a dozen miles their river ran roughly parallel with another that came down from the north-west.
The leaves, green the summer through, were now turned to a vivid flame-colour. She plucked three or four and pinned them over her bosom, glanced at the effect in the mirror, and went quickly down the stairs. Fairer day could hardly have been chosen. "Happy is the bride the sun shines on." ... In the sunshine by the stable door Mr. Strongtharm sat polishing his gun.
Ruth saddled her mare, and rode off in the direction of the gap, thoughtfully. Mr. Strongtharm had given her a new notion. . . . It was close upon nightfall when she returned. She was muddy, but cheerful; and she hummed a song to herself in her chamber as she slid off her mired garments and attired herself for supper. That song was her nesting song.
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