CHAPTER II THE ROUND TABLE

“But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest—if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink like some full-breasted swan
That fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

TORY DREW glanced up from the pages of the book she had been reading throughout the long night.

Dawn was touching with pale fingers the outside world. The fire to which she had failed to pay any attention in the past hour20 was a hot bed of glowing ashes. The lamp was beginning a sputtering warning that the end of its supply of oil was drawing near.

Still for several moments more Tory read on. A few verses and she would have finished reading Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King.” The poems had held her enchanted many hours.

Not that Tory had read for so long a time without stopping. Twice she had thrown herself upon the couch drawn near the fire and had done her best to sleep. On both occasions the terror of the night and storm and her loneliness seized hold on her.

Every Girl Scout resolution was summoned and recited. Now and then Tory repeated them aloud to fortify her courage. Notwithstanding, she continued unable to lose consciousness, and rising again would go back to her book.

Fortunately for Victoria Drew, since her arrival in Westhaven the winter before she had become the intimate comrade of her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton. In the beautiful library at the Fenton house she frequently prepared her school lessons for the following day. Oftentimes in search of a special piece of information she would hunt among the old21 books on the shelves above her head. Occasionally she sat listening while Mr. Fenton read aloud.

Until her friendship with her uncle Tory had not cared a great deal for books. She was not so enthusiastic a reader as several other girls in her Patrol of Scouts. But there were certain stories and romances, pages of history that appealed to Tory’s ardent imagination with peculiar force.

She would have explained that she loved to read whatever created the most vivid mental picture.

In this lay the fascination for Tory in Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King.” She had never read the entire group of poems until to-night; only listened to an occasional extract or quotation recited by Mr. Fenton. She had, however, heard the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

To intensify her interest Mr. Fenton had described the frescoes of Sir Galahad and his search for the Holy Grail, painted by a great artist. He had promised to take her some day to Boston to see them.

Alone to-night, Tory had seen her own vision, and been inspired with a new idea.

Now she was weary and very sleepy.

22 Over her own costume she was wearing a warm crimson wrapper of Miss Frean’s.

Heaping the fire with the last remaining logs, she lay down again, drawing the covers over her head to shut out the cold white light of dawn. This time promptly Tory fell asleep. The sleep was not particularly heavy. Certainly she was listening for a sound outside that might announce the return of Memory Frean to her own home. Had she been forced to stay at another house because of the storm or illness, Tory believed she would come home as soon as possible.

Naturally in her semiconscious condition Tory’s dreams were confused. Her head was filled with chivalrous romances of the past, with stories of knights and ladies and tournaments. Never far away was the thought of her own Girl Scout organization. Prosaic though it might appear to some persons, for Tory it held endless ideals and romances. At present in her dreams, amid the combination of impressions the figure of King Arthur appeared, and “Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces.”

King Arthur seemed to have met Memory Frean somewhere, and was escorting Miss Frean to the little House in the Woods,23 accompanied by a troop of Knights of the Round Table.

One of them was making an extraordinary amount of noise. The knight must have ridden his horse up to the front door. He was pounding upon it as if he were demanding admittance.

Half dazed, Tory at last sat up on the edge of the couch.

At dawn she had raised one of the blinds. Now the sun outside was making a white magic on the snow as beautiful as any picture in her imagination.

There was no magic, however, with regard to the noise; it was unmistakably real.

Tory half stumbled, half ran across the cold floor in her stockinged feet, with the dressing gown close about her.

She turned the key and her hand was on the knob when she paused an instant.

Her eyes traveled to an old-fashioned clock that hung above the mantel; it was not yet seven o’clock.

The sound outside was an odd one; scarcely could she imagine it made by Memory Frean.

Tory was still tired and anxious, more so than she had been during her long vigil. Never had she read so much and for so long a24 time and certainly not under such circumstances.

“Memory, is it you?” the girl’s voice called.

The following instant a huge body flung itself against the door so that the little house shook with the impact.

Tory had the good sense to cross over to the window. More fully awake and with daylight come, she had less sense of nervous fear.

The snow outside lay nearly level with the window sill, although it had ceased to fall. The morning air was clear and shining. The white arms of the trees were outstretched as if in benediction.

Unable to see through the frosted glass, Tory partly raised the window.

She gave a little cry as the figure bounded from the door to the window. The cry was not of fear but of amused relief.

The early morning intruder was a dog that lived in the neighborhood and was an especial friend of Miss Frean’s. She it was who had named him “The Emperor.”

He had not appeared at the camp in Beechwood Forest the summer before as often as the Girl Scouts had expected. Apparently the Emperor regarded only a few persons with25 affection. The confusion of camp life did not please him to the extent of the quiet little House in the Woods.

Miss Frean had a peculiar sympathy with animals, the rare gift possessed by few persons and most of them lonely in their relation to human beings.

At present Tory Drew was not surprised by the visit from the Emperor. Troubled by the first heavy snowstorm of the winter, he had come to see if all were well with his friend.

Unhesitatingly Tory opened the door and the big dog rushed indoors. He was a Great Dane and she reeled slightly when he threw himself against her, placing his heavy paws on her two shoulders.

The voice that ordered him down was not wholly devoid of fear.

The Emperor obeyed, but seized hold of the crimson dressing gown, the property of Miss Frean, which Tory was still wearing. He began pulling at it with an intensity of appeal.

Tory recognized the situation, or was under the impression that she recognized it.

Far away as the House in the Woods was from other homes, some one must have gone26 astray in the storm. The Emperor had come to the one person he knew who was sure to give aid. He had come to seek Miss Frean. Not finding her, he was making his petition to the person he had discovered in her place.

Taking off the dressing gown, Tory slipped on her shoes and overshoes, and then more slowly her coat and furs.

The dog remained patiently waiting so far as any movement of his body, but always with the suggestion of imploring haste in his eyes.

This became more apparent when, dressed for the outdoors, Tory hesitated.

Was the old truism in this case a stern reality? Was discretion not the better part of valor?

Should she follow the dog to the spot where some one may have been overcome by the storm? Once there, what possible aid had she the power to render? Yet to fail to do what she could was less possible. Not only to her principles as a Girl Scout would she be unfaithful, but she had entertained herself during the past night by considering her Patrol as Knights of a Round Table.

“‘All kinds of service with a noble ease, that graced the lowliest act in doing it,’”27 Tory quoted to herself, as she stepped out of the front door, the dog close beside her.

She stopped and caught her breath.

The air was tingling with the sharp cold, the sky above the branches of the snow-laden trees a steel blue. These were not the important facts. Save for the footprints of the dog, there was no track anywhere of man or beast; the path had completely vanished. To step out into the unpacked snow would mean that she too would be floundering about half-way up to her waist and soon in need of help instead of being able to offer it.

Nevertheless, through the intense stillness of the early winter morning Tory believed she did hear some one approaching.

The Emperor must have received the same impression. He appeared to sympathize and understand her uncertainty once she had stepped outdoors to follow his behest. Now he bounded from her.

Not long after Tory’s eyes filled with tears of surprise and relief, which promptly froze into crystals.

The newcomer, making his way slowly and painstakingly toward the House in the Woods, was her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton.

“Tory, is it well with you and Miss Frean?”28 he called out. “I have been worrying about you all night and got up at daylight to come and see.”

He was nearer now and Tory smiled happily upon him.

“I was under the impression I was becoming an old man, Tory dear,” he remarked as he put his arm about her. “Now I am not so sure. At first I thought I never would be able to make the long walk out here. There was no other way at present and I was determined to come. You see, you borrowed my horse and sleigh for your pilgrimage yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes, I know, I am sorry—no, I am not,” Tory contradicted herself. “I really don’t know what I am saying. What would you think if I tell you that I spent the entire night alone in the House in the Woods? Memory Frean was away when I arrived and I stayed on, thinking she would return each moment. Then night and the storm——”

“And Memory Frean did not return home?” Mr. Fenton inquired, with more anxiety in his manner and tone than Tory had suffered.

Shaking her head, she was attempting to give her own version of the situation, when the Emperor, whom they had almost forgotten,29 flung himself upon them in a perfect fury of emotional excitement.

Mr. Fenton at once understood his appeal.

“Some one is lost in the snow. How can we manage, Tory?” he asked a little helplessly. Immediately the girl braced herself to meet the conditions intelligently. Her training as a Girl Scout counted in such moments of emergency.

“After all, there is the horse and sleigh! I had completely forgotten!” she answered. “If they have survived the night as well as I have, we can drive slowly, following the Emperor. If anyone has been overcome by the snowstorm, there is a chance we could bring him to the House in the Woods.”