Queen Lucia
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson Chapter ONE Though the sun was hot on this July morning Mrs Lucas preferred to cover the half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that her husband had ordered to meet her. After those four hours in the train a short walk would be pleasant, but, though she veiled it from her conscious mind, another motive, sub-consciously engineered, prompted her action. It would, of course, be universally known to all
beavers, to the Frenchman, who was interested like a boy in this new,
almost unheard-of beast. At length:
"Rafael and his brother-in-law were disappointed. A beaver had been
close and eaten the bark off a birch stick which the men had left, but
nothing was in the trap. They turned and began a weary walk through the
desolate country back to their little tent. Small comfort waited for
them there, as their provisions were low, only flour and bacon left.
And they dared not expend much of that. They were down-hearted, and to
add to it a snow-storm came on and they lost their way. Almost a
hopeless situation--an uninhabited country, winter, snow, hunger. And
they were lost. '_Egare. Perdu_,' Rafael said. But the Huron was far
from giving up. He peered through the falling snow, not thick yet, and
spied a mountain across a valley. He knew that mountain. He had worked
near it for two years, logging--the '_chantier_,' they call it. He knew
there was a good camp on a river near the mountain, and he knew there
would be a stove in the camp and, as Rafael said, 'Mebbe we haf a luck
and somebody done gone and lef' somet'ing to eat,' Rafael prefers to
talk English to me. He told me all this in broken English.
"It was three miles to the hypothetical camp, but the two tired, hungry
men in their rather wretched clothes started hopefully. And after a hard
tramp through unbroken forest they came in sight of a log shanty and
their spirits rose. 'Pretty tired work,' Rafael said it was. When they
got close to the shanty they hoard a noise inside. They halted and
looked at each other. Rafael knew there were no loggers in these parts
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson Chapter ONE Though the sun was hot on this July morning Mrs Lucas preferred to cover the half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that her husband had ordered to meet her. After those four hours in the train a short walk would be pleasant, but, though she veiled it from her conscious mind, another motive, sub-consciously engineered, prompted her action. It would, of course, be universally known to all