Читать книгу The Wilderness Trail - Sullivan Francis William - Страница 7

Jean Fitzpatrick rose from the breakfast-table at Fort Severn, and asked for the Winnipeg papers. Three days before, the mail-carrier had dashed in with dogs on the gallop, and ever since the white folk at the fort had been having a riot of joy. Months-old letters from almost forgotten friends, and papers many weeks behind their dates had been perused over and over again, until they could almost be recited from memory.

Tongues wagged in gossip over personages perhaps dead by this time, and sage opinions settled questions that had long since passed from the minds of men in the glamourous cities of far-off civilization.

Jean passed from the dining-room into the drawing-room, where many days before she had sent Donald McTavish from her presence. Her father, who, had eaten earlier, had retired into his private study, pleading business matters of urgency, and the girl settled herself luxuriously near a square, snow-edged window, with a pile of newspapers beside her easy chair.

She had not been reading long when voices raised in argument at the front door distracted her attention.

“No,” the servant of the house was saying, “you can't see the factor. He has given orders that he cannot be disturbed.”

“But I must see him!” replied a croaking voice, using the Ojibway dialect. “I have come many miles to see him, and must go away to-day.”

“Who are you?” asked Butts, the British butler, who served the factor's table with all the ceremony to be found in an English manor.

“Maria.”

“Maria who?

“Just Maria. I don't need any other name.”

“Tell me your message, and I'll give it to him. Then, you can come around later in the day for your answer.”