A Maid in Arcady

The clear water of the little river, in which the willows were mirrored quiveringly, shallowed where a tiny bar of silver-white sand thrust the ripples aside. Thus confined, the stream sulked for a moment in a deep, pellucid pool, and then, with sudden rush and gurgle, swept through a miniature narrows and swirled about the naked roots of the willows.

[Illustration: THE STREAM SULKED IN A DEEP, PELLUCID POOL.]

With a quick plunge of the paddle Ethan guided the canoe past the threatening bar. A drooping branch swept his face caressingly as the craft gained the quiet water beyond. Here, as though repentant of its impatience, the river loitered and lapped about a massive granite bowlder, tugging playfully at the swaying ferns and tossing scintillant drops upon the velvety moss. To the left, the fringe of woodland which, in friendly gossip, had followed the little river for a quarter of a mile, parted where a second stream, scarcely more than a brook, flowed placidly into the first. Reinforced, the river widened a little and went slowly, musically on under the drooping branches, alternately sun-splashed and shadowed, until it disappeared at a distant turn. But the canoe did not follow. Instead it rocked lazily by the bowlder, while the ripples broke gently against its smooth sides.

To the bole of an old willow which dropped its leaves in autumn upon the white sand-bar was nailed a weather-gray board, on which faded letters stated:

PRIVATE PROPERTY!

NO TRESPASSING!

[Illustration]

Ethan observed the warning meditatively. In view of his later course of action let us credit him with that hesitation. At length, with a faint smile on his face, he turned the nose of the canoe toward the smaller stream and his back to the sign.

To have observed him one would scarcely have believed him capable of deliberately committing the dire crime of trespass. There was something about his good-looking face which bespoke honesty. At least, it would have been difficult to credit him with underhand methods; it seemed easier to believe that if he ever did commit a crime it would be in such a superbly open and above-board fashion as to rob it of half its iniquity. Not that there was anything of classical beauty about his face. His eyes were a shade of brown, his nose was perhaps a trifle too short to reach the standard of the Grecians, his mouth, unhidden by any mustache, did not to any great extent suggest a Cupid’s bow. His chin was aggressive. For the rest, he had the usual allowance of hair of a not uncommon shade of brown, and showed, when he laughed which was by no means infrequently――a set of very white and very capable looking teeth. And yet I reiterate my former adjective; good-looking he was; good-looking in a healthy, frank, happy and rather boyish way that was eminently satisfying.

If the sign on the old willow was right, and he really was trespassing, I have no excuse to offer, or at least none that my conscience will allow me to suggest. I can’t plead ignorance for him, for the simple reason that he had seen the sign and read it and that he knew all about trespass――or as much as was taught in the three-year course at the Harvard Law School, which he had finished barely a fortnight ago.

Meanwhile he has been sending the canoe quietly along the winding water path, dipping the paddle with easy, rhythmic swings of his shoulders, pushing the blade astern through the clear water and swinging it, flashing and dripping, back for the next stroke. He had tossed his light cloth cap into the bottom of the canoe and had laid his coat over a thwart. The summer morning sunlight, slanting through the branches, wove quickly vanishing patterns in gold upon his brown hair. The tiny breeze, just a mere breath from the southwest, fragrant with the odor of damp, sun-warmed soil and greenery, stirred the sheer white shirt he wore and laid it in folds under the raised arm.