Annette - The Metis Spy

"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."