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Chapter IV
The sun had gone down when Miss Sommerton put her foot once more on the landing.
“We will go and search for him,” said the boatman.
“Stay where you are,” she commanded, and disappeared swiftly up the path. Expecting to find him still at the falls, she faced the prospect of a good mile of rough walking in the gathering darkness without flinching. But at the brow of the hill, within hearing distance of the landing, she found the man of whom she was in search. In her agony of mind Miss Sommerton had expected to come upon him pacing moodily up and down before the falls, meditating on the ingratitude of womankind. She discovered him in a much less romantic attitude. He was lying at full length below a white birch-tree, with his camera-box under his head for a pillow. It was evident he had seen enough of the Shawenegan Falls for one day, and doubtless, because of the morning’s early rising, and the day’s long journey, had fallen soundly asleep. His soft felt hat lay on the ground beside him. Miss Sommerton looked at him for a moment, and thought bitterly of Mason’s additional perjury in swearing that he was an elderly man. True, his hair was tinged with grey at the temples, but there was nothing elderly about his appearance. Miss Sommerton saw that he was a handsome man, and wondered this had escaped her notice before, forgetting that she had scarcely deigned to look at him. She thought he had spoken to her with inexcusable bluntness at the falls, in refusing to destroy his plate; but she now remembered with compunction that he had made no allusion to his ownership of the boat for that day, while she had boasted that it was hers. She determined to return and send one of the boatmen up to awaken him, but at that moment Trenton suddenly opened his eyes, as a person often does when some one looks at him in his sleep. He sprang quickly to his feet, and put up his hand in bewilderment to remove his hat, but found it wasn’t there. Then he laughed uncomfortably, stooping to pick it up again.
“I—I—I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he stammered—
“Why did you not tell me,” she said, “that Mr. Mason had promised you the boat for the day?”
“Good gracious!” cried Trenton, “has Ed. Mason told you that?”
“I have not seen Mr. Mason,” she replied; “I found it out by catching an accidental remark made by one of the boatmen. I desire very humbly to apologise to you for my conduct.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter at all, I assure you.”
“What! My conduct doesn’t?”
“No, I didn’t mean quite that; but I—Of course, you did treat me rather abruptly; but then, you know, I saw how it was. You looked on me as an interloper, as it were, and I think you were quite justified, you know, in speaking as you did. I am a very poor hand at conversing with ladies, even at my best, and I am not at my best to-day. I had to get up too early, so there is no doubt what I said was said very awkwardly indeed. But it really doesn’t matter, you know—that is, it doesn’t matter about anything you said.”
“I think it matters very much—at least, it matters very much to me. I shall always regret having treated you as I did, and I hope you will forgive me for having done so.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Mr. Trenton, swinging his camera over his shoulder. “It is getting dark, Miss Sommerton; I think we should hurry down to the canoe.”
As they walked down the hill together, he continued—
“I wish you would let me give you a little lesson in photography, if you don’t mind.”
“I have very little interest in photography, especially amateur photography,” replied Miss Sommerton, with a partial return of her old reserve.
“Oh, I don’t wish to make an amateur photographer of you. You sketch very nicely, and—”
“How do you know that?” asked Miss Sommerton, turning quickly towards him: “you have never seen any of my sketches.”
“Ah, well,” stammered Trenton, “no—that is—you know—are not those water-colours in Mason’s house yours?”
“Mr. Mason has some of my sketches. I didn’t know you had seen them.”
“Well, as I was saying,” continued Trenton, “I have no desire to convert you to the beauties of amateur photography. I admit the results in many cases are very bad. I am afraid if you saw the pictures I take myself you would not be much in love with the art. But what I wish to say is in mitigation of my refusal to destroy the plate when you asked me to.”
“Oh, I beg you will not mention that, or refer to anything at all I have said to you. I assure you it pains me very much, and you know I have apologised once or twice already.”
“Oh, it isn’t that. The apology should come from me; but I thought I would like to explain why it is that I did not take your picture, as you thought I did.”
“Not take my picture? Why I saw you take it. You admitted yourself you took it.”
“Well, you see, that is what I want to explain. I took your picture, and then again I didn’t take it. This is how it is with amateur photography. Your picture on the plate will be a mere shadow, a dim outline, nothing more. No one can tell who it is. You see, it is utterly impossible to take a dark object and one in pure white at the instantaneous snap. If the picture of the falls is at all correct, as I expect it will be, then your picture will be nothing but a shadow unrecognisable by any one.”
“But they do take pictures with the cataract as a background, do they not? I am sure I have seen photos of groups taken at Niagara Falls; in fact, I have seen groups being posed in public for that purpose, and very silly they looked, I must say. I presume that is one of the things that has prejudiced me so much against the camera.”
“Those pictures, Miss Sommerton, are not genuine; they are not at all what they pretend to be. The prints that you have seen are the results of the manipulation of two separate plates, one of the plates containing the group or the person photographed, and the other an instantaneous picture of the falls. If you look closely at one of those pictures you will see a little halo of light or dark around the person photographed. That, to an experienced photographer, shows the double printing. In fact, it is double dealing all round. The deluded victim of the camera imagines that the pictures he gets of the falls, with himself in the foreground, is really a picture of the falls taken at the time he is being photographed. Whereas, in the picture actually taken of him, the falls themselves are hopelessly over-exposed, and do not appear at all on the plate. So with the instantaneous picture I took; there will really be nothing of you on that plate that you would recognise as yourself. That was why I refused to destroy it.”
“I am afraid,” said Miss Sommerton, sadly, “you are trying to make my punishment harder and harder. I believe in reality you are very cruel. You know how badly I feel about the whole matter, and now even the one little point that apparently gave me any excuse is taken away by your scientific explanation.”
“Candidly, Miss Sommerton, I am more of a culprit than you imagine, and I suppose it is the tortures of a guilty conscience that caused me to make this explanation. I shall now confess without reserve. As you sat there with your head in your hand looking at the falls, I deliberately and with malice aforethought took a timed picture, which, if developed, will reveal you exactly as you sat, and which will not show the falls at all.”
Miss Sommerton walked in silence beside him, and he could not tell just how angry she might be. Finally he said, “I shall destroy that plate, if you order me to.”
Miss Sommerton made no reply, until they were nearly at the canoe. Then she looked up at him with a smile, and said, “I think it a pity to destroy any pictures you have had such trouble to obtain.”
“Thank you, Miss Sommerton,” said the artist. He helped her into the canoe in the gathering dusk, and then sat down himself. But neither of them saw the look of anxiety on the face of the elder boatman. He knew the River St. Maurice.
Chapter V
From the words the elder boatman rapidly addressed to the younger, it was evident to Mr. Trenton that the half-breed was anxious to pass the rapids before it became very much darker.
The landing is at the edge of comparatively still water. At the bottom of the falls the river turns an acute angle and flows to the west. At the landing it turns with equal abruptness, and flows south.
The short westward section of the river from the falls to the point where they landed is a wild, turbulent rapid, in which no boat can live for a moment. From the Point downwards, although the water is covered with foam, only one dangerous place has to be passed. Toward that spot the stalwart half-breeds bent all their energy in forcing the canoe down with the current. The canoe shot over the darkening rapid with the speed of an arrow. If but one or two persons had been in it, the chances are the passage would have been made in safety. As it was one wrong turn of the paddle by the younger half-breed did the mischief. The bottom barely touched a sharp-pointed hidden rock, and in an instant the canoe was slit open as with a knife.
As he sat there Trenton felt the cold water rise around him with a quickness that prevented his doing anything, even if he had known what to do.
“Sit still!” cried the elder boatman; and then to the younger he shouted sharply, “The shore!”
They were almost under the hanging trees when the four found themselves in the water. Trenton grasped an overhanging branch with one hand, and with the other caught Miss Sommerton by the arm. For a moment it was doubtful whether the branch would hold. The current was very swift, and it threw each of them against the rock bank, and bent the branch down into the water.
“Catch hold of me!” cried Trenton. “Catch hold of my coat; I need both hands.”
Miss Sommerton, who had acted with commendable bravery throughout, did as she was directed. Trenton, with his released hand, worked himself slowly up the branch, hand over hand, and finally catching a sapling that grew close to the water’s edge, with a firm hold, reached down and helped Miss Sommerton on the bank. Then he slowly drew himself up to a safe position and looked around for any signs of the boatmen. He shouted loudly, but there was no answer.
“Are they drowned, do you think?” asked Miss Sommerton, anxiously.
“No, I don’t suppose they are; I don’t think you could drown a half-breed. They have done their best to drown us, and as we have escaped I see no reason why they should drown.”
“Oh, it’s all my fault! all my fault!” wailed Miss Sommerton.
“It is, indeed,” answered Trenton, briefly.
She tried to straighten herself up, but, too wet and chilled and limp to be heroic, she sank on a rock and began to cry.
“Please don’t do that,” said the artist, softly. “Of course I shouldn’t have agreed with you. I beg pardon for having done so, but now that we are here, you are not to shirk your share of the duties. I want you to search around and get materials for a fire.”
“Search around?” cried Miss Sommerton dolefully.
“Yes, search around. Hunt, as you Americans say. You have got us into this scrape, so I don’t propose you shall sit calmly by and not take any of the consequences.”
“Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Trenton, now that I am helpless?”
“If it is an insult to ask you to get up and gather some wood and bring it here, then I do mean to insult you most emphatically. I shall gather some, too, for we shall need a quantity of it.”
Miss Sommerton rose indignantly, and was on the point of threatening to leave the place, when a moment’s reflection showed her that she didn’t know where to go, and remembering she was not as brave in the darkness and in the woods as in Boston, she meekly set about the search for dry twigs and sticks. Flinging down the bundle near the heap Trenton had already collected, the young woman burst into a laugh.
“Do you see anything particularly funny in the situation?” asked Trenton, with chattering teeth. “I confess I do not.”
“The funniness of the situation is that we should gather wood, when, if there is a match in your pocket, it must be so wet as to be useless.”
“Oh, not at all. You must remember I come from a very damp climate, and we take care of our matches there. I have been in the water before now on a tramp, and my matches are in a silver case warranted to keep out the wet.” As he said this Trenton struck a light, and applied it to the small twigs and dry autumn leaves. The flames flashed up through the larger sticks, and in a very few moments a cheering fire was blazing, over which Trenton threw armful after armful of the wood he had collected.
“Now,” said the artist, “if you will take off what outer wraps you have on, we can spread them here, and dry them. Then if you sit, first facing the fire and next with your back to it, and maintain a sort of rotatory motion, it will not be long before you are reasonably dry and warm.”
Miss Sommerton laughed, but there was not much merriment in her laughter.
“Was there ever anything so supremely ridiculous?” she said. “A gentleman from England gathering sticks, and a lady from Boston gyrating before the fire. I am glad you are not a newspaper man, for you might be tempted to write about the situation for some sensational paper.”
“How do you know I am not a journalist?”
“Well, I hope you are not. I thought you were a photographer.”
“Oh, not a professional photographer, you know.”
“I am sorry; I prefer the professional to the amateur.”
“I like to hear you say that.”
“Why? It is not very complimentary, I am sure.”
“The very reason I like to hear you say it. If you were complimentary I would be afraid you were going to take a chill and be ill after this disaster; but now that you are yourself again, I have no such fear.”
“Myself again!” blazed the young woman. “What do you know about me? How do you know whether I am myself or somebody else? I am sure our acquaintance has been very short.”
“Counted by time, yes. But an incident like this, in the wilderness, does more to form a friendship, or the reverse, than years of ordinary acquaintance in Boston or London. You ask how I know that you are yourself. Shall I tell you?”
“If you please.”
“Well, I imagine you are a young lady who has been spoilt. I think probably you are rich, and have had a good deal of your own way in this world. In fact, I take it for granted that you have never met any one who frankly told you your faults. Even if such good fortune had been yours, I doubt if you would have profited by it. A snub would have been the reward of the courageous person who told Miss Sommerton her failings.”
“I presume you have courage enough to tell me my faults without the fear of a snub before your eyes.”
“I have the courage, yes. You see I have already received the snub three or four times, and it has lost its terrors for me.”
“In that case, will you be kind enough to tell me what you consider my faults?”
“If you wish me to.”
“I do wish it.”
“Well, then, one of them is inordinate pride.”
“Do you think pride a fault?”
“It is not usually reckoned one of the virtues.”
“In this country, Mr. Trenton, we consider that every person should have a certain amount of pride.”
“A certain amount may be all right. It depends entirely on how much the certain amount is.”
“Well, now for fault No. 2.”
“Fault No. 2 is a disregard on your part for the feelings of others. This arises, I imagine, partly from fault No. 1. You are in the habit of classing the great mass of the public very much beneath you in intellect and other qualities, and you forget that persons whom you may perhaps dislike, have feelings which you have no right to ignore.”
“I presume you refer to this morning,” said Miss Sommerton, seriously. “I apologised for that two or three times, I think. I have always understood that a gentleman regards an apology from another gentleman as blotting out the original offence. Why should he not regard it in the same light when it comes from a woman?”
“Oh, now you are making a personal matter of it. I am talking in an entirely impersonal sense. I am merely giving you, with brutal rudeness, opinions formed on a very short acquaintance. Remember, I have done so at your own request.”
“I am very much obliged to you, I am sure. I think you are more than half right. I hope the list is not much longer.”
“No, the list ends there. I suppose you imagine that I am one of the rudest men you ever met?”
“No, we generally expect rudeness from Englishmen.”
“Oh, do you really? Then I am only keeping up the reputation my countrymen have already acquired in America. Have you had the pleasure of meeting a rude Englishman before?”
“No, I can’t say that I have. Most Englishmen I have met have been what we call very gentlemanly indeed. But the rudest letter I ever received was from an Englishman; not only rude, but ungrateful, for I had bought at a very high price one of his landscapes. He was John Trenton, the artist, of London. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” hesitated Trenton, “I know him. I may say I know him very well. In fact, he is a namesake of mine.”
“Why, how curious it is I had never thought of that. Is your first name J—, the same as his?”
“Yes.”
“Not a relative, is he?”
“Well, no. I don’t think I can call him a relative. I don’t know that I can even go so far as to call him my friend, but he is an acquaintance.”
“Oh, tell me about him,” cried Miss Sommerton, enthusiastically. “He is one of the Englishmen I have longed very much to meet.”
“Then you forgave him his rude letter?”
“Oh, I forgave that long ago. I don’t know that it was rude, after all. It was truthful. I presume the truth offended me.”
“Well,” said Trenton, “truth has to be handled very delicately, or it is apt to give offence. You bought a landscape of his, did you? Which one, do you remember?”
“It was a picture of the Thames valley.”
“Ah, I don’t recall it at the moment. A rather hackneyed subject, too. Probably he sent it to America because he couldn’t sell it in England.”
“Oh, I suppose you think we buy anything here that the English refuse, I beg to inform you this picture had a place in the Royal Academy, and was very highly spoken of by the critics. I bought it in England.”
“Oh yes, I remember it now, ‘The Thames at Sonning.’ Still, it was a hackneyed subject, although reasonably well treated.”
“Reasonably well! I think it one of the finest landscape pictures of the century.”
“Well, in that at least Trenton would agree with you.”
“He is very conceited, you mean?”
“Even his enemies admit that.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a man of such talent could be so conceited.”
“Then, Miss Sommerton, allow me to say you have very little knowledge of human nature. It is only reasonable that a great man should know he is a great man. Most of our great men are conceited. I would like to see Trenton’s letter to you. I could then have a good deal of amusement at his expense when I get back.”
“Well, in that case I can assure you that you will never see the letter.”
“Ah, you destroyed it, did you?”
“Not for that reason.”
“Then you did destroy it?”
“I tore it up, but on second thoughts I pasted it together again, and have it still.”
“In that case, why should you object to showing me the letter?”
“Well, because I think it rather unusual for a lady to be asked by a gentleman show him a letter that has been written to her by another gentleman.”
“In matters of the heart that is true; but in matters of art it is not.”
“Is that intended for a pun?”
“It is as near to one as I ever allow myself to come, I should like very much to see Mr. Trenton’s letter. It was probably brutally rude. I know the man, you see.”
“It was nothing of the sort,” replied Miss Sommerton, hotly. “It was a truthful, well-meant letter.”
“And yet you tore it up?”
“But that was the first impulse. The pasting it together was the apology.”
“And you will not show it to me?”
“No, I will not.”
“Did you answer it?”
“I will tell you nothing more about it. I am sorry I spoke of the letter at all. You don’t appreciate Mr. Trenton’s work.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, I do. He has no greater admirer in England than I am—except himself, of course.”
“I suppose it makes no difference to you to know that I don’t like a remark like that.”
“Oh, I thought it would please you. You see, with the exception of myself, Mr. Trenton is about the rudest man in England. In fact, I begin to suspect it was Mr. Trenton’s letter that led you to a wholesale condemning of the English race, for you admit the Englishmen you have met were not rude.”
“You forget I have met you since then.”
“Well bowled, as we say in cricket.”
“Has Mr. Trenton many friends in London?”
“Not a great number. He is a man who sticks rather closely to his work, and, as I said before, he prides himself on telling the truth. That doesn’t do in London any more than it does in Boston.”
“Well, I honour him for it.”
“Oh, certainly; everybody does in the abstract. But it is not a quality that tends to the making or the keeping of friends, you know.”
“If you see Mr. Trenton when you return, I wish you would tell him there is a lady in America who is a friend of his; and if he has any pictures the people over there do not appreciate, ask him to send them to Boston, and his friend will buy them.”
“Then you must be rich, for his pictures bring very good prices, even in England.”
“Yes,” said Miss Sommerton, “I am rich.”
“Well, I suppose it’s very jolly to be rich,” replied the artist, with a sigh.
“You are not rich, then, I imagine?”
“No, I am not. That is, not compared with your American fortunes. I have enough of money to let me roam around the world if I wish to, and get half drowned in the St. Maurice River.”
“Oh, is it not strange that we have heard nothing from those boatmen? You surely don’t imagine they could have been drowned?”
“I hardly think so. Still, it is quite possible.”
“Oh, don’t say that; it makes me feel like a murderer.”
“Well, I think it was a good deal your fault, don’t you know.” Miss Sommerton looked at him.
“Have I not been punished enough already?” she said.
“For the death of two men—if they are dead? Bless me! no. Do you imagine for a moment there is any relation between the punishment and the fault?”
Miss Sommerton buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, I take that back,” said Trenton. “I didn’t mean to say such a thing.”
“It is the truth—it is the truth!” wailed the young woman. “Do you honestly think they did not reach the shore?”
“Of course they did. If you want to know what has happened, I’ll tell you exactly, and back my opinion by a bet if you like. An Englishman is always ready to back his opinion, you know. Those two men swam with the current until they came to some landing-place. They evidently think we are drowned. Nevertheless, they are now making their way through the woods to the settlement. Then comes the hubbub. Mason will stir up the neighbourhood, and the men who are back from the woods with the other canoes will be roused and pressed into service, and some time to-night we will be rescued.”
“Oh, I hope that is the case,” cried Miss Sommerton, looking brightly at him.
“It is the case. Will you bet about it?”
“I never bet,” said Miss Sommerton.
“Ah, well, you miss a good deal of fun then. You see I am a bit of a mind reader. I can tell just about where the men are now.”
“I don’t believe much in mind reading.”
“Don’t you? Shall I give you a specimen of it? Take that letter we have spoken so much about. If you think it over in your mind I will read you the letter—not word for word, perhaps, but I shall give you gist of it, at least.”
“Oh, impossible!”
“Do you remember it?”
“I have it with me.”
“Oh, have you? Then, if you wish to preserve it, you should spread it out upon the ground to dry before the fire.”
“There is no need of my producing the letter,” replied Miss Sommerton; “I remember every word it.”
“Very well, just think it over in your mind, and see if I cannot repeat it. Are you thinking about it?”
“Yes, I am thinking about it.”
“Here goes, then. ‘Miss Edith Sommerton—‘”
“Wrong,” said that young lady.
“The Sommerton is right, is it not?”
“Yes, but the first name is not.”
“What is it, then?”
“I shall not tell you.”
“Oh, very well. Miss Sommerton,—‘I have some hesitation in answering your letter.’ Oh, by the way, I forgot the address. That is the first sentence of the letter, but the address is some number which I cannot quite see, ‘Beacon Street, Boston.’ Is there any such street in that city?”
“There is,” said Miss Sommerton. “What a question to ask.”
“Ah, then Beacon Street is one of the principal streets, is it?”
“One of them? It is the street. It is Boston.”
“Very good. I will now proceed with the letter. ‘I have some hesitation in answering your letter, because the sketches you send are so bad, that it seems to me no one could seriously forward them to an artist for criticism. However, if you really desire criticism, and if the pictures are sent in good faith, I may say I see in them no merit whatever, not even good drawing; while the colours are put on in a way that would seem to indicate you have not yet learned the fundamental principle of mixing the paints. If you are thinking of earning a livelihood with your pencil, I strongly advise you to abandon the idea. But if you are a lady of leisure and wealth, I suppose there is no harm in your continuing as long as you see fit.—Yours truly, JOHN TRENTON.’”
Miss Sommerton, whose eyes had opened wider and wider as this reading went on, said sharply—
“He has shown you the letter. You have seen it before it was sent.”
“I admit that,” said the artist.
“Well—I will believe all you like to say about Mr. John Trenton.”
“Now, stop a moment; do not be too sweeping in your denunciation of him. I know that Mr. Trenton showed the letter to no one.”
“Why, I thought you said a moment ago that he showed it to you.”
“He did. Yet no one but himself saw the letter.”
The young lady sprang to her feet.
“Are you, then, John Trenton, the artist?”
“Miss Sommerton, I have to plead guilty.”
