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Page 25
The hiss of a boat and the sound of row-locks failed to move him from
his listless attitude. He did, however, turn his eyes and set his jaws
in the direction of the passing oarsman. Louis Satanette was all in
white flannel, and flush-faced like a cream-pink rose with pleasant
exhilaration. He held his oars poised and let his boat run slowly past
Adam.
"What have you the matter?" he exclaimed, with sincere anxiety.
"Oh, it's naught," said Adam. "I'm just weary, weary."
"You have been gone a very, very long time," said Louis, using the
double Canadian adjective. "Mrs. Macgregor is on the lookout."
Adam thought of her when she was _not_ on the lookout. He also thought
of her tidying things about the camp in the morning, and singing as he
pulled from the bay. Perhaps she was on another sort of lookout then.
"I'll go in presently," he muttered.
"Beg pardon?" said Louis Satanette, bending forward, and giving the
upward inflection to that graceful Canadian phrase which asks a
repetition while implying that the fault is with the hearer.
"I said I'd go in presently. There's no hurry."
"Allow me to take you in," said Louis. "You have approached too close
to the altars of the sylvan gods, and their sacrificial smoke has
overcome you. Don't you see it rising everywhere from the woods?"
"The sylvan gods are none of my clan," remarked Adam, shifting his
position impatiently, "and it's little I know of them. There's a graat
dail of ignorance consailed aboot my pairson."
Louis Satanette laughed with enjoyment:
"Well, _au revoir_. I will put up my sail when I turn the points. It
will be a long run up the lakes, with this haze hanging and not wind
enough to lift it."
"Good-day to ye," responded Adam. "We'll likely shift camp before you're
this way."
"In so short a time?" exclaimed Louis.
"In so lang a time. I'm soul-sick of it. It's lone; it's heavy. The
fine's too great for the pleasure of the feight. Look, now,--there were
two rough laddies up Glazka way, in my country, and they came to fists
aboot a sweethairt, the fools. But when they are stripped and ready, one
hits the table wi's hond, and says he, 'Ay, Georgie, I'm wullin' to
feight ye, but wha's goin' to pay the fine?'"
Louis Satanette laughed again, but as if he did not know just what was
meant."
"It's a cautious mon, is the Scotchmon," said Adam, "but no' so slow,
after all."
"Oh, never slow!" said Louis. "Very, very fast indeed, to leave this
paradise in the midst of the summer."
"'Farewell to lovely Loch Achray,'" sighed Adam:
"Where shall we find, in any land,
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand?"
Louis made a sign of adieu and dipped his oars.
"It's only _au revoir_," said he, shooting past. "Be very, very far from
parting with Magog too early."
"'So lone a lake, so sweet a strand,'" repeated Adam, dropping his head
back against the stern.
He did not move while the sound of the other's oars died away behind
him. He did not move while the afternoon shadows spread far over the
water.
The long Canadian twilight advanced stage by stage. First, all Magog
flushed, as if a repetition of the old miracle had turned it to wine.
Then innumerable night-hawks uttered their four musical notes in endless
succession, upon the heights, down in the woods, from the mainland
mountain. The north star became discernible almost overhead. Then, with
slow and irregular strokes, Adam pulled away from the cliff, and brought
his keel to grate the sand in front of his tent.
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