"Sweet girl, in the hour of pain you always can give me consolation.
Indians have also skulked after us; and it may be that the braves
were only watching whither Captain Stephens went."
"My view precisely, mademoiselle; but we shall talk no more about it
now. Sit beside me here upon the bank, and look at the peace and the
beauty of all this scene." Under the shadow of the bank, with its
matted growth of trees, the water was a pure myrtle green; midway in
the expanse it was purple, and beyond, in the last faint light of the
sun, it was an exquisite violet. The sand at their feet alternated in
veins of umber brown, and ashes of roses; while the vermillion of the
rowan berries made a vivid and gorgeous contrast to the glaucous
green of the leafage.
Little ripples came upon the bright, pink sand that fringed the
unvarying tide-mark.
"What causes the ripple now, Julie, when no breath of wind is in the
heavens, and neither oar nor paddle is on the lake?"
"Stay; I thought that I heard it a moment ago! Yes, I hear it again.
Hear you not the note of some waterfowl?"
Yes, Annette did hear it; but she could not say from what kind of
bird the singing came.
"Well, my sweet mistress, the ripples which you now see swinging in
upon the sand come from the same bird whose song you hear. The bird
itself is the swan, made sacred to love."
"Oh, I remember something of the legend, Julie. Repeat it to me,
s'il vous plait."
"Well; there was once a beautiful maiden of the plains, whom many of
the bravest and most noble of the chiefs adored; but she disdained
their wooing, for she loved with a passion that absorbed her soul and
body a young man with hair like the corn leaves when, after rain, the
sunlight is shot through the stalks. He stayed some days in the lodge
of the chief, her father; and while his heart was yet full of love
for the peach-skinned, star-eyed maiden, he was obliged to go away
with his white brethren, who had come from over seas to trace the
source and flow of some of our mighty rivers. The parting of the
lovers was like the breaking of heart-strings. The maiden pined, and
through all the summer sat among the flowers sighing for her darling
with the amber-tinted hair. Her sleep refreshed her not, for through
the night she dreamt of naught but the parting, and of the sorrow in
his sky-blue eyes. In the day, her eyes were ever looking wistfully
along the trail by which he had come, or gazing, with a woe past
skill to describe, out along the stretch by which he had gone from
her sight. Late in the autumn, when the petals of the rose and the
daisy began to fall, and summer birds prepared for the flight to the
south, the Great Spirit came softly down from a cumulus cloud and
stood beside the maiden, as she sat upon the fading prairie. He told
her of a glorious land out in the heavens, where spring endured for
ever, and true lovers were joined to have no more parting; and when
she looked yearningly towards the region at which he pointed, he
asked her if she would go thither with him. With joy unutterable she
consented, and giving her hand into his, the two rose in the air and
disappeared through a piled mass of rosy cloud. When she reached
paradise, knowledge was given to her of the loves of maidens upon the
earth, and reflecting how bitter her lot had been, she besought the
God of Thunder, and the Ruler of the Spheres, to permit her to pass a
portion of each year upon the earth, in order to watch over and
console love-sick virgins who were separated from their betrothed. To
her request the god consented, giving to the maiden the figure of a
swan. Since that time she visits the earth a short time after
midsummer day; and you can hear her singing upon our great inland
waters during the night, at any place between the lonesome stretches
of the far north to the great southern lakes, from the middle of
summer till the first golden gleam comes in the maple leaf. Then she
arises, and the hunter marvels at the beautiful bird with the white
pinions which flies up into the heavens, and passes beyond the
highest clouds."