CHAPTER VI.
For several moments Ailsa stood where he had left her, the dog crouching at her feet. David did not look back. When his big figure had disappeared around a bend, Ailsa sank weakly to the ground, and covered her face with her hands. Mac wriggled to her, and laid his head upon her knee.
How long she remained there she could not have told. Her mind was in a whirl, and refused to act clearly or logically. Her one cognate idea was that after what had happened she could never face the Wisharts as a guest in their house.
Presently she raised her head, and looked around. The shadows were lengthening, and she realized that it was getting late. The thought occurred that when she did not return somebody would come to look for her; and, seized with a sudden panic, she got up, and turned directly into the woods.
She knew that the railroad was about three miles from the Wishart place, and as she was gifted with a good sense of direction, it seemed to her that she could find her way through the woods and fields to the little town and the railroad station. Her one idea was now to get back to Brooklyn.
The underbrush was thick, and the going difficult, but she pushed ahead, feeling sure that the woods must presently end, and that she would come out into open country, where she might be able to look about and get an idea of her location. But at the end of what seemed to her at least an hour, she found herself still in the tangle. To make matters worse, the long summer twilight was beginning to fade.
Had it not been for Mac, Ailsa would have been thoroughly scared, as her ideas of American forests were what might have been expected of a newly arrived girl from the north of Scotland. For all she knew, the place might abound in dangerous characters or beasts of prey.
At length, after what seemed to her an interminable nightmare, she saw an opening ahead, and struggled on with renewed courage, only to come out a few moments later on the edge of what appeared to be a marsh, or an inlet from the Sound. It was a sad, desolate spot, with a narrow channel running between a stretch of mud flats, and fringed about the edges with reeds. So far as she could see, her progress was absolutely blocked, and, thoroughly disheartened, she dropped down at the foot of a tree, and burst into tears.
But the darkness was not far away, and she struggled to her feet, and started to make her way along the edge of the morass, or creek, or whatever it might be, for she realized that once the darkness overtook her she would have to spend the night in the dreary place.
The light was growing obscure when she saw, some distance ahead of her, resting on the mud, what appeared to be a fishing boat of about twenty tons. Thinking that there might be somebody aboard the boat who would show her the way out of the place, she hurried down to the edge of the creek opposite where it lay.
Her tremulous hail brought no response, but she saw, a little farther on, a long skiff tied to a bush, and at the same time discovered that the water was flowing into the place and beginning to submerge the flats. Being a longshore lass, she realized that the tide was rising, and that it would not be long before she would be able to paddle out to the smack.
“At any rate,” she thought, “that will be better than spending the night in the wood. Nothing can get me out there, and if the fishermen come they can take me back to civilization.”
Ailsa's knowledge of fishermen was of the hearty North Sea type, but she was not far wrong in her estimate of them as a class.
She sat down, and waited for the incoming tide to reach the skiff. The shadows deepened, and overhead a pale, tiny star winked feebly in a sky of deepest Prussian blue. Mysterious whisperings came from the sedge, and a great heron drifted past, to light on the farther side of the morass. Far in the distance heard the whistle of a locomotive, but this seemed infinitely remote. At her feet the water was rising fast, and it did not seem so very long before she found that she could move the skiff. She got aboard, closely followed by Mac, and, having cast off the painter, poled easily out to the smack.
It proved to be a stanch enough old tub, with a little cabin in the after end. The hatch was unlocked, so, after calling once or twice and then sending Mac to investigate the dark interior, Ailsa went below. Groping blindly about, her hand fell presently upon a tin box filled with matches. She struck one, and as it flamed up saw a lamp set in gimbals on the fore bulkhead. This she lighted, and looked about at her refuge. The place was stripped of practically everything, and the lockers contained not so much as a biscuit; but in one of the bare bunks was a patched old sail. Crawling in between its bights, Ailsa stretched herself out with a sigh of relief, and was almost instantly asleep.
When she awoke, the sun was blazing in through the open hatch. She crawled out of the bight of the moldy-smelling sail, and, followed by the frisking Mac, went up on deck. She discovered immediately that she had no time to lose if she did not wish to be a prisoner for several hours, as the tide was running swiftly out of the place, and there was barely water enough left over the flats to float the skiff.
However, she managed to reach the bank on the far side of the creek, where she left the skiff for its owner to secure as best he might. It occurred to the girl that this was rather a poor return for her shelter, and she was seriously considering paddling back aboard to leave a piece of money on the table, when it occurred to her, with a shock of dismay, that she was penniless.
This discovery frightened and bewildered her. What was she to do? Here she was, a long way from the city, without a person to whom she could appeal, and not a cent of money. Moreover, she was sharply hungry, having had neither dinner nor breakfast. She sat down to think.
“I must find the village,” she said to herself, “and then go to the inn and send to the Wisharts' for my things. In the meantime, if I come upon a farmhouse I will beg a glass of milk.”
Remembering the direction of the locomotive whistle that she had heard the night before, she set out through the woods again, presently to strike a footpath that came out on a broad expanse of open meadows. Half a mile ahead a line of telegraph poles and the unsightly backs of a row of sign-boards marked the railway, and as Ailsa looked she saw a wagon proceeding parallel to it. In the distance were some houses, which appeared to indicate the edge of a community. Here and there on the flat, open landscape were also some scattered farm buildings.
Following the path, Ailsa cut straight across the meadows for the road, coming out directly upon the row of signboards. Approaching one of them from the rear, she heard a merry whistling, and on passing around the end of the cumbersome affair beheld a young man in a long linen blouse perched upon a stepladder and painting away with a vigor that suggested a full quota of health and good spirits. As Ailsa appeared within his range of vision, he glanced around from his work, and she saw that he was broad of shoulder, with a lean face, of which the well-shaped features and pleasing expression were ornamented by sundry flecks of paint.
“Good morning!” said he pleasantly, and returned to his work. “A fine summer morning for either exercise or art.” This last remark was addressed to the sign, which was more than two-thirds finished, and which represented a large herd of cleanly cattle; in the foreground a rotund Alderney submitted gracefully to the caress of an equally clean and healthy milkmaid.
“Good morning!” returned Ailsa. “Can you tell me the name of that town over there?”
“That is scarcely a town,” replied the painter, without pausing in his work. “In fact, it is rather a name than a place. I believe it is called Lucerne, probably because it is low and flat.”
“Do you know is there a hotel there?”
He shot her a quick glance. “Not one that you would care to patronize,” he answered. Something about Ailsa's face seemed to hold his eyes, which was not surprising, as it had suddenly gone white, due no doubt to faintness from lack of food. “Are you feeling ill?” he asked, and descended quickly from his ladder
“No,” she answered. “That is, I'm—I'm hungry.” And she winked back the tears that had risen suddenly to her eyes.
“Hungry—good Lord!” The sign painter looked as much shocked as if she had told him that she was shot or stabbed. “Sit right down there on my coat,” said he, “and we will mighty soon correct that.” And he picked up what Ailsa had taken to be one of his tins of paint, but which, when opened and spread out, proved to be a most elaborate collation, comprising ham and chicken sandwiches, a boiled potato, cheese, pickles, and a quarter section of apple pie.
“There!” said the sign painter, spreading out the array on a piece of plank which he had wrenched, with the output of considerable muscular strength, from a rival signboard. “When you have finished that, it will be time for lunch. Then, if you care to have me, I will escort you to the metropolis of this desert, which is about four miles down the track. Here is also a bottle of very good beer. One cannot eat cold things without beer.”
“But this is your lunch,” Ailsa protested.
“It does not matter, as I am getting fast with my canvas—I mean, my board—that I shall be finished long before lunch time. What you do not want we will give to your dog. He appears to be interested in the layout.”
Having said which, he picked up his brushes, and mounted his ladder, and for several minutes the air was filled with nice fresh paint.
Ailsa did not any longer demur. Having quenched her thirst with a satisfying draft of beer from the tin cup that served as a top for the lunch pail, she fell to upon the sandwiches, and was sure that she had never tasted anything so truly delicious. The wing and breast of a chicken followed, when Mac came in for a share. Perched on the top of his ladder, the sign painter continued to work and whistle, never so much as looking around until Ailsa, with a little sigh of satisfaction, remarked:
“I never tasted anything so good in all my life. I don't know how I can ever thank you.”
“You have thanked me enough by appreciating my poor hospitality,” he replied, glancing back over his shoulder. “Give those other sandwiches to the dog.”
“But you might be needing them yourself.”
For answer, the sign painter descended from his ladder, picked up the sandwiches, and tossed them one by one to the expectant Mac, who received them thankfully, with two bites and a swallow for each, then looked up, wagged his stump of a tail, and said “Woof!”
“That means 'Thank you,'” said Ailsa. “And I've drunk all your beer,” she added regretfully. “Mac had a drink from a ditch.”
“I have done the same myself,” said the young man. He glanced at his picture, backed off several yards, and studied it again, his head a little on one side. “What do you think of it?” he asked.
“It is far better than most,” said the girl truthfully.
“That is to damn it with faint praise,” he replied. “Do you happen to paint yourself?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“Really? Then you might give me a criticism. You must remember that my audiences pass quickly in trains, so I try to concentrate on the more striking features—such as the carmine cheeks of the milkmaid.”
“Why have you made that cow in the background sitting down like a dog?” asked the girl.
“She is not sitting down,” said the artist. “She is getting up. What are you laughing at?”
“'Tis plain you are from the town,” said Ailsa. “A cow does not get up that way. She gets up hind end first.”
The sign painter's eyes opened wide, and Ailsa observed that they were of a very attractive shade of blue. He slapped his thigh.
“By Jove, but you're right!” said he. “Wait a minute.” And he set off across the field.
“Where are you going?”
“Be right back,” he called over his shoulder. “You see those cows lying down over there? I'm going to stir 'em up, and see how they go about it.”
Ailsa sank back on the grass, dropped her face in her hands, and laughed until the tears came. Looking up, she saw the artist approach the resting cattle, then stop short as they arose, and study their upward evolutions with the deepest interest. This accomplished, he trotted back.
“Just a mental note,” said he. “I say, are you in any hurry?”
“Not particularly,” she answered, wondering a little that he had not asked her any questions about herself.
“Then would you mind lending me your face for about five minutes?”
“Lending you my face!” Ailsa exclaimed, with a backward step.
“Yes—for this milkmaid of mine. She looks too much like a suffragette.”
Ailsa's rich laugh pealed out, and the sign painter smiled sympathetically.
“Of course I will,” she answered.
“Thanks awfully. Stand just as you are, please.”
With swift, rapid strokes that showed a considerable knowledge of technique, he proceeded to convert the stony-faced milkmaid into a strikingly pretty girl. As the last touches were laid in, he climbed down from his ladder, walked back a few paces, and surveyed his work with a grunt of satisfaction.
“There!” said he. “That's something like. There is nothing that possesses the advertising value of a pretty girl. That will make the smoking-car bunch forget its bridge. Now for Buttercup in the background. Lucky for me you came along. You see, this is to advertise the Alfalfa Dairy Products, so called because there's not a spear of alfalfa within a thousand miles. I paint in the letters last.”
He was rummaging among his paints as he spoke, and looked up suddenly with a low whistle of dismay.
“What's the matter?” Ailsa asked. She was beginning to feel very much at home with this eccentric artist.
“I've come off without my green paint. I loaned it last night to the farmer at whose house I slept, to paint his cellar doors, and the chump forgot to return it. I say, would you very much mind watching this duffle while I run down here to the store and see what I can get? I've really got to paint out Buttercup. If our clients were to see her sitting there like Old Dog Tray it might arouse some suspicion as to the purity of the Alfalfa Dairy stock. Would you?”
“Of course not. I have plenty of time.”
“Thanks awfully. I'll be back in fifteen minutes.”
He started off on a trot down the road, but at the end of fifty yards pulled up short.
“I say,” he called back, “what if a tramp should come along?”
“I'm not afraid,” she answered. “I have Mac to protect me.”
“Good! I won't be gone long.” And he was off again.
Ailsa gazed curiously after the athletic figure running lightly down the road, then turned to an inspection of the sign. It was really uncommonly good, she was forced to admit, and she wondered how it was that a man of such apparent intelligence and knowledge of his craft could be content with sign painting. Indeed, he impressed her as quite the gentleman.
His tact in resuming his work while she was satisfying her hunger, and his offering the remains of the luncheon to Mac, as if to assure her that he really was not inconvenienced by the loss of his meal, touched Ailsa. An American girl would have perceived immediately that the young man was of a class far above his occupation, but Ailsa had been given to understand that the native-born American held himself to be the equal of any, and tried to live up to these standards.
Studying the sign, she presently discovered that the figure of the milkmaid was not as well drawn as it might be. The middle of the torso was thrust too far forward for the position of the feet, which gave the figure as a whole an unattractive, stumpy look.
Acting on a sudden impulse, Ailsa picked up a brush, wiped the handle on a piece of paper, and set to work. She had once done some work on a fresco for a big hotel in London which an acquaintance of hers had been commissioned to paint; but that had not been difficult, as it was taken off from a preliminary sketch and squared to scale. Nevertheless, she had no difficulty in correcting the shape of the milkmaid, and with such success that from a rather strong resemblance to a lady in the act of turning a back handspring she became a swaying, willowy Evangeline, or a Mary “calling the cattle hame across the sands o' Dee.”
She had just finished her retouching when, far in the distance, she discovered the sign painter on his return. Slipping down from the ladder, she reseated herself on the edge of the bank, and watched him. He was still running lightly, and a small tin bucket swung from his hand. To Ailsa's surprise, he arrived not in the least out of breath, or noticeably warm.
“I wasn't long, was I?” said he. “This stuff isn't quite the right shade, but I can fix it with a little yellow and blue. Hello!” he broke off suddenly to stare at his sign. “My word! What's struck Gwendoline? Is she going to jump out of the picture at me? Oh, I say, did you do that?”
He turned to stare at Ailsa, unbounded admiration in his clear blue eyes.
“No,” she answered; “Mac did it.”
“Who's Mac?”
“My dog. Do you like it 2”
“If I weren't a poor sign painter, I'd saw it out and take it home. She's a peacherino—pulchrissima—pippinesque! My dear young lady, you have plainly missed your vocation. You ought to be a sign painter.”
“And are you sure that is not to damn me with faint praise?”
“Considering that bovine background of mine and the foreshortening of Gwendoline's waistline, perhaps it is. Especially as I am at the head of the profession.”
“And do you find it a profitable one?”
“More so than many other branches of art—such as trying to paint Salon pictures in the Latin Quarter.”
“And have you done that?”
“Yes. Unsuccessfully. At this branch, however, I am successful. I am just now paid by piecework, and manage to earn about fifty dollars a week.”
“And how do you get about with all this gear?”
“I've got a trap. Every morning I crank up old Dobbin, and start out, working along my assigned route, and usually putting up at some farmhouse for the night. Last night I stopped on the edge of the town. The farmer brought me down here this morning at five, and took Dobbin back. He's to have the use of him to-day, and that will square the board bill.”
“And have you always work enough?”
“More than I can attend to. Artistic sign painting is not an overcrowded profession, because, you see, the chaps that ought to be in it are busy turning the art galleries into chambers of horror. Used to do it myself. Don't know how many people I've given astigmatism. I could do with an assistant.”
“And how much would you be paying an assistant?”
“Oh, fifty dollars a month, or thereabouts, according to ability
Ailsa leaned forward, with sparkling eyes.
“Would you be willing to engage me as your assistant?” she asked eagerly.