The Man Thou Gavest | Page 5

course he would be grateful for that! It would mean life to him--life, not mere existence. He began to hope that Jim White would stay away a month; what with study, and the play, and the doing for himself, the time ahead was provided for already!
Stalking noiselessly forward, Truedale came into the clearing, passed White's shack, and approached his own with a fixed determination. Then he stopped short. He was positive that he had closed windows and doors--the caution of the city still clung to him--but now both doors and windows were set wide to the brilliant autumn day and a curl of smoke from a lately replenished fire cheerfully rose in the clear, dry air.
"Well, I'll be--!" and then Truedale quietly slipped to the rear of the cabin and to a low, sliding window through which he could peer, unobserved. One glance transfixed him.
CHAPTER II
The furnishing of the room was bare and plain--a deal table, a couple of wooden chairs, a broad comfortable couch, a cupboard with some nondescript crockery, and a good-sized mirror in the space between the front door and the window. Before this glass a strange figure was walking to and fro, enjoying hugely its own remarkable reflection. Truedale's bedraggled bath robe hung like a mantle from the shoulders of the intruder--they were very straight, slim young shoulders; an old ridiculous fez--an abomination of his freshman year, kept for sentimental reasons--adorned the head of the small stranger and only partly held in check the mass of shadowy hair that rippled from it and around a mischievous face.
Surprise, then wonder, swayed Truedale. When he reached the wonder stage, thought deserted him. He simply looked and kept on wondering. Through this confusion, words presently reached him. The masquerader within was bowing and scraping comically, and in a low, musical voice said:
"How-de, Mister Outlander, sir! How-de? I saw your smoke a-curling way back from home, sir, and I've come a-visiting 'long o' you, Mister Outlander."
Another sweeping curtsey reduced Truedale to helpless mirth and he fairly shouted, doubling up as he did so.
The effect of his outburst upon the young person within was tremendous. She seemed turned to stone. She stared at the face in the window; she turned red and white--the absurd fez dangling over her left ear. Then she emitted what seemed to be one word, so lingeringly sweet was the drawl.
"Godda'mighty!"
Seeing that there was going to be no other concession, Truedale pulled himself together, went around to the front door and knocked, ceremoniously. The girl turned, as if on a pivot, but spoke no word.
She had the most wonderful eyes--innocent and pleading; she was a mere child and, although she looked awed now, was evidently a forward young native who deserved a good lesson. Truedale determined to give her one!
"If you don't mind," he said, "I'll come in and sit down."
This he did while the big, solemn eyes followed him alertly.
"And now will you be kind enough to tell me what you mean by--wearing my clothes?"
Still the silence and the blank stare.
"You must answer my questions!" Truedale's voice sounded stern. "I suppose you didn't expect me back so soon?"
The deep eyes confirmed this by the drooping of the lids.
"And you broke in--what for?"
No answer.
"Who are you?"
Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and reassure her.
"Now that I look at you I see what you are. You're not a human at all. You're a spirit of something or other--probably of one of those perky mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! You had to don my clothes in order to materialize before my eyes and you had to use that word of the hills--so that I could understand you. It's quite plain now and you are welcome to my--my bath robe; I dare say that, underneath it, you are decked out in filmy clouds and vapours and mists. Oh! come now--" The strange eyes were filling--but not overflowing!
"I was only joking. Forgive me. Why--"
The wretched fez fell from the soft hair--the bedraggled robe from the rigid shoulders--and there, garbed in a rough home-spun gown, a little plaid shawl and a checked apron, stood--
"It's the no-count," thought Truedale. Aloud he said, "Nella-Rose!"
With the dropping of the disguise years and dignity were added to the girl and Truedale, who was always at his worst in the presence of strange young women, gazed dazedly at the one before him now.
"Perhaps"--he began awkwardly--"you'll sit down. Please do!" He drew a chair toward her. Nella-Rose sank into it and leaned her bowed head upon her arms, which she folded on the table. Her shoulders rose and fell convulsively, and Truedale, looking at her, became hopelessly wretched.
"I'm a beast and nothing less!" he admitted by way of apology and excuse. "I--I