beech when I see a ’ead pop up in the covert ’oldin’ a stick like ’e was h’aimin’ at the dogs sir—’
‘A head holding a stick?’ said Pierpont severely.
‘The ’ead ’ad ’ands, sir,’ explained Howlett, ‘’ands that ’eld a painted stick – like that, sir. ’Owlett, thinks I to myself, this ’ere’s queer, so I jumps in an’ runs, but the beggar ’e seen me an’ w’en I comes alongside of David ’e was gone. “’Ello ’Owlett,” sez David, “what the ’ell” – I beg pardon, sir – “’ow did you come ’ere,” sez ’e very loud. “Run!” sez I, “the Chinaman is harryin’ the dawgs!” “For Gawd’s sake wot Chinaman?” sez David, h’aimin’ ’is gun at every bush. Then I thinks I see ’im an’ we run an’ run, the dawgs a boundin’ close to heel sir, but we don’t see no Chinaman.’
‘I’ll tell the rest,’ said David, as Howlett coughed and stepped in a modest corner behind the dogs.
‘Go on,’ said Barris in a strange voice.
‘Well sir, when Howlett and I stopped chasin’, we was on the cliff overlooking the south meadow. I noticed that there was hundreds of birds there, mostly yellowlegs and plover, and Howlett seen them too. Then before I could say a word to Howlett, something out in the lake gave a splash – a splash as if the whole cliff had fallen into the water. I was that scared that I jumped straight into the bush and Howlett he sat down quick, and all those snipe wheeled up – there was hundreds – all asquealin’ with fright, and the woodduck came bowlin’ over the meadows as if the old Nick was behind.’
David paused and glanced meditatively at the dogs.
‘Go on,’ said Barris in the same strained voice.
‘Nothing more sir. The snipe did not come back.’
‘But that splash in the lake?’
‘I don’t know what it was sir.’
‘A salmon? A salmon couldn’t have frightened the duck and the snipe that way?’
‘No – oh no, sir. If fifty salmon had jumped they couldn’t have made that splash. Couldn’t they, Howlett?’
‘No ’ow,’ said Howlett.
‘Roy,’ said Barris at length, ‘what David tells us settles the snipe shooting for today. I am going to take Pierpont up to the house. Howlett and David will follow with the dogs – I have something to say to them. If you care to come, come along; if not, go and shoot a brace of grouse for dinner and be back by eight if you want to see what Pierpont and I discovered last night.’
David whistled Gamin and Mioche to heel and followed Howlett and his hamper toward the house. I called Voyou to my side, picked up my gun and turned to Barris.
‘I will be back by eight,’ I said; ‘you are expecting to catch one of the gold-makers are you not?’
‘Yes,’ said Barris listlessly.
Pierpont began to speak about the Chinaman but Barris motioned him to follow, and, nodding to me, took the path that Howlett and David had followed toward the house. When they disappeared I tucked my gun under my arm and turned sharply into the forest, Voyou trotting close to my heels.
In spite of myself the continued apparition of the Chinaman made me nervous. If he troubled me again I had fully decided to get the drop on him and find out what he was doing in the Cardinal Woods. If he could give no satisfactory account of himself I would march him in to Barris as a gold-making suspect – I would march him in anyway, I thought, and rid the forest of his ugly face. I wondered what it was that David had heard in the lake. It must have been a big fish, a salmon, I thought; probably David’s and Howlett’s nerves were overwrought after their Celestial chase.
A whine from the dog broke the thread of my meditation and I raised my head. Then I stopped short in my tracks.
The lost glade lay straight before me.
Already the dog had bounded into it, across the velvet turf to the carved stone where a slim figure sat. I saw my dog lay his silky head lovingly against her silken kirtle; I saw her face bend above him, and I caught my breath and slowly entered the sunlit glade.
Half timidly she held out one white hand.
‘Now that you have come,’ she said, ‘I can show you more of my work. I told you that I could do other things besides these dragonflies and moths carved here in stone. Why do you stare at me so? Are you ill?’
‘Ysonde,’ I stammered.
‘Yes,’ she said, with a faint color under her eyes.
‘I – I never expected to see you again,’ I blurted out, ‘—you – I – I – thought I had dreamed—’
‘Dreamed, of me? Perhaps you did, is that strange?’
‘Strange? N—no – but – where did you go when – when we were leaning over the fountain together? I saw your face – your face reflected beside mine and then – then suddenly I saw the blue sky and only a star twinkling.’
‘It was because you fell asleep,’ she said, ‘was it not?’
‘I – asleep?’
‘You slept – I thought you were very tired and I went back—’
‘Back? – where?’
‘Back to my home where I carve my beautiful images; see, here is one I brought to show you today.’
I took the sculptured creature that she held toward me, a massive golden lizard with frail claw-spread wings of gold so thin that the sunlight burned through and fell on the ground in flaming gilded patches.
‘Good Heavens!’ I exclaimed, ‘this is astounding! Where did you learn to do such work? Ysonde, such a thing is beyond price!’
‘Oh, I hope so,’ she said earnestly, ‘I can’t bear to sell my work, but my step-father takes it and sends it away. This is the second thing I have done and yesterday he said I must give it to him. I suppose he is poor.’
‘I don’t see how he can be poor if he gives you gold to model in,’ I said, astonished.
‘Gold!’ she exclaimed, ‘gold! He has a room full of gold! He makes it.’
I sat down on the turf at her feet completely unnerved.
‘Why do you look at me so?’ she asked, a little troubled.
‘Where does your step-father live?’ I said at last.
‘Here.’
‘Here!’
‘In the woods near the lake. You could never find our house.’
‘A house!’
‘Of course. Did you think I lived in a tree? How silly.
