In a minute she was back with gla.s.ses and clean napkins, knives, forks, spoons, and a bottle of wine; from a second visit she returned with plates, condiments, and a dish of fruit. Then, running to the cooking-pot, she fetched soup in two bowls. "And after that," she promised, "there will be partridges. Mr. Strongtharm shot them for me, for I was too busy. They are turning by the fire on a jack my mother taught me to make out of threads that untwist and twist again. . . .

Shall I sit here, at my lord's feet?"

"Sit where you will, but close; and kiss me first. You have not kissed me yet--and it is our wedding day. Our wedding feast! O Ruth--Ruth, my love!"

"Our wedding feast! . . . Could it be better! O my dear, dear lord!

. . . But I'll not kiss you yet."

"Why, Ruth?"

"Why, sir, because I will not--and that's a woman's reason.

Afterwards--but not now! You boasted of your hunger. What has become of it?"

They ate for a while in silence. The stream roared at their feet.

Above them, in the gap of the hills, Jupiter already blazed, and as the last of the light faded, star after star came out to keep him company.

He praised her roasting of the partridges. "To-morrow," she answered, "you shall take your gun and get me game. We must be good providers.

To-morrow--"

"To-morrow--and for ever and ever--" He poured wine and drank it slowly.

"Ah, look up at the heavens! And we two alone. Is this not best, after all? Was I not right?"

"Perhaps," he answered after a pause. "It is good, at all events."

"To-morrow we will explore; and when this place tires us--but my lord has not praised it yet--"

"Must I make speeches?"

"No. When this place tires us, we will strike camp and travel up through the pa.s.s. It may be we shall find boatmen on the upper waters, and a canoe. But for some days, O my love, let these only woods be enough for us!"

Their dessert of fruit eaten, she arose and turned to the business of washing-up. He would have helped; but she mocked him, having hidden his shoes. "You are to rest quiet, and obey!"

Before setting to work she brought him coffee and a roll of tobacco-leaf, and held a burning stick for him while he lit and inhaled.

For twenty minutes, perhaps, he watched her, stretched on the rock, resting on his elbow, his hunger appeased, his whole frame fatigued, but in a delicious weariness, as in a dream.

Far down the valley the full moon thrust a rim above the ma.s.sed oaks and hemlocks. It swam clear, and he called to her to come and watch it.

She did not answer. She had slipped away to the house--as he supposed to restore the plates to their shelves. Apparently it took her a long while. . . . He called again to her.

The curtain of the doorway was lifted and she stood on the threshold, all in white, fronting the moon.

"Will my lord come into his house?"

Her voice thrilled down to him. . . . Then she remembered that he stood there shoeless; and, giving a little cry, would have run barefoot down the moonlit rocky steps, preventing him.

But he had sprung to his unshod feet, and with a cry rushed up to her, disregarding the thorns.

She sank, crossing her arms as a slave--in homage, or, it may be, to protect her maiden b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"No, no--" she murmured, sliding low within his arms. "Look first around, if our house be worthy!"

But he caught her up, and lifting her, crushing her body to his, carried her into the hut.

Chapter VII.

HOUSEKEEPING.

She awoke at daybreak to the twittering of birds. Raising herself little by little, she bent over him, studying the face of her beloved.

He slept on; and after a while she slipped from the couch, collected her garments in a bundle, tiptoed to the door, and lifting its curtain, stole out to the dawn.

Mist filled the valley below the fall. A purple bank of vapour blocked the end of it. But the rolling outline was edged already with gold, and already ray upon ray of gold shivered across the upper sky and touched the pinewoods at the head of the pa.s.s.

Clad in cloak and night-rail, shod in loose slippers of Indian leather-work, she moved across to the fire she had banked overnight.

Beside it a bold robin had perched on the rim of the cooking-pot.

He fluttered up to a bough, and thence watched her warily. She remade the fire, building a cone of twigs; fetched water, scoured the cauldron, and hung it again on its bar. As she lifted it the sunlight glinted on the ring her lover had brought for the wedding and had slipped on her finger in the cabin, binding her by this only rite.

The fire revived and crackled cheerfully. She caught up the bundle again and climbed beside the stream, following its right bank until she came to the pool of her choice. There, casting all garments aside, she went down to it, and the alders hid her.

Half an hour later she returned and paused on the threshold of the hut, the sunlight behind her. In her arms she carried a cl.u.s.ter--a bundle almost--of ferns and autumnal branches--cedar and black-alder, the one berried with blue the other with coral, maple and aromatic spruce, with trails of the grape vine. He was awake and lay facing the door, half-raised on his left elbow.

"This for good-morning!" She held out the armful to show him, but so that it hid her blushes. Then, dropping the cl.u.s.ter on the floor, she ran and knelt, bowing her face upon the couch beside him. But laying a palm against either temple he forced her to lift it and gaze at him, mastering the lovely shame.

He looked long into her eyes. "You are very beautiful," he said slowly.

She sprang to her feet. "See the dew on my shoes! I have bathed, and--" with a gesture of the hand towards the scattered boughs-- "afterwards I pulled these for you. But I was in haste and late because--because--" She explained that while bathing she had let the ring, which was loose and heavy, slip from her finger into the pool.

It had lodged endwise between two pebbles, and she had taken some minutes to find it. "As for these," she said, "the flowers are all done, but I like the leaves better. In summer our housekeeping might have been make-believe; now, with the frosts upon us, we shall have hard work, and a fire to give thanks for."

He slid from the couch and, standing erect, threw a bath-gown over his shoulders. "I must build a chimney," he said, looking around; "a chimney and a stone hearth."

"Then our house will be perfect."

"I will start this very day. . . . Show me the way to your pool."

They ate their breakfast on the stone above the fall, in the warm sunshine, planning and talking together like children. He would build the chimney; but first he must climb down to the lower valley and find Bayard, deserted at the foot of the falls, and left to wander all night at will.

He must take the mare, too, she said; and promised to start him on the bridle-path, so that he could not miss it.

"What! Must I ride on a side-saddle?"

"It should be easy for you," she laughed. "You pretended to know all about it when you taught me." In the end it was settled that she should ride and he walk beside till Bayard was found. "Then you can lead her back and leave her with Mr. Strongtharm."