Part 30 (1/2)
”Swift moccasins for little feet as swift against the day that the long trail is safe. Then, in the Vale Yndaia, little Lois, seek her who bore you, saved you, lost you, but who love you always.
”Pray every day for him who died in the Regiment de la Reine.
”Pray too for her who waits for you, in far Yndaia.”
”What a strange message!” I exclaimed.
”I must heed it,” she said under her breath. ”The trail is open, and my hour is come.”
”But, Lois, that trail means death!”
”Your army makes it safe at last. And now the time is come when I must follow it.”
”Is that why you have followed us?”
”Yes, that is why. Until that night in the storm at Poundridge-town I had never learned where the Vale Yndaia lay. Month after month I haunted camps, asking for information concerning Yndaia and the Regiment de la Reine. But of Yndaia I learned nothing, until the Sagamore informed me that Yndaia lay near Catharines-town. And, learning you were of the army, and that the army was bound thither, I followed you.”
”Why did you not tell me this at Poundridge? You should have camped with us,” I said.
”Because of my fear of men--except red men. And I had already quite enough of your Lieutenant Boyd.”
I looked at her seriously; and she comprehended the unasked questions that were troubling me.
”Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how I have learned my dread of men--how it has been with me since my foster parents found me lying at their door strapped to a painted cradle-board?”
”You!”
”Aye; that was my shameful beginning, so they told me afterward--long afterward. For I supposed they were my parents--till two years ago. Now shall I tell you all, Euan? And risk losing a friends.h.i.+p you might have given in your ignorance of me?”
Quick, hot, unconsidered words flew to my lips--so sweet and fearless were her eyes. But I only muttered:
”Tell me all.”
”From the beginning, then--to scour my heart out for you! So, first and earliest my consciousness awoke to the sound of drums. I am sure of this because when I hear them it seems as though they were the first sounds that I ever heard.... And once, lately, they were like to be the last.... And next I can remember playing with a painted mask of wood, and how the paint tasted, and its odour.... Then, nothing more can I remember until I was a little child with--him I thought to be my father. I may not name him. You will understand presently why I do not.”
She looked down, pulling idly at the thrums along her beaded leggins.
”I told you I was near your age--twenty. But I do not really know how old I am, I guess that I am twenty--thereabouts.”
”You look sixteen; not more--except the haunting sorrow----”
”I can remember full that length of time.... I must be twenty, Euan.
When I was perhaps seven years old--or thereabout--I went to school--first in Schenectady to a Mistress Lydon; where were a dozen children near my age. And pretty Mistress Lydon taught us A--B--C and manners--and nothing else that I remember now. Then for a long while I was at home--which meant a hundred different lodgings--for we were ever moving on from place to place, where his employment led him, from one house to another, staying at one tavern only while his task remained unfinished, then to the road again, north, south, west, or east, wherever his fancy sped before to beckon him.... He was a strange man, Euan.”
”Your foster father?”
”Aye. And my foster mother, too, was a strange woman.”
”Were they not kind to you?”
”Y-es, after their own fas.h.i.+on. They both were vastly different to other folk. I was fed and clothed when anyone remembered to do it, And when they had been fortunate, they sent me to the nearest school to be rid of me, I think. I have attended many schools, Euan--in Germantown, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in New York. I stayed not long in school at New York because there our affairs went badly. And no one invited us in that city--as often we were asked to stay as guests while the work lasted--not very welcome guests, yet tolerated.”
”What was your foster father's business?”