Ruhannah remembered seeing him on several occasions when she was a
little child. He was usually tramping across country with his sturdy
father, Dick Neeland of Neeland's Mills--an odd, picturesque pair with
their setter dogs and burnished guns, and old Dick's face as red as a
wrinkled winter apple, and his hair snow-white.
There was six years' difference between their ages, Jim Neeland's and
hers, and she had always considered him a grown and formidable man in
those days. But that winter, when somebody at the movies pointed him
out to her, she was surprised to find him no older than the other
youths she skated with and danced with.
Afterward, at a noisy village party, she saw him dancing with every
girl in town, and the drop of Irish blood in this handsome, careless
young fellow established him at once as a fascinating favourite.
Rue became quite tremulous over the prospect of dancing with him.
Presently her turn came; she rose with a sudden odd loss of
self-possession as he was presented, stood dumb, shy, unresponsive,
suffered him to lead her out, became slowly conscious that he danced
rather badly. But awe of him persisted even when he trod on her
slender foot.
He brought her an ice afterward, and seated himself beside her.
"I'm a clumsy dancer," he said. "How many times did I spike you?"
She flushed and would have found a pleasant word to reassure him, but
discovered nothing to say, it being perfectly patent to them both that
she had retired from the floor with a slight limp.
"I'm a steam roller," he repeated carelessly. "But you dance very
well, don't you?"
"I have only learned to dance this winter."
"I thought you an expert. Do you live here?"
"Yes.... I mean I live at Brookhollow."
"Funny. I don't remember you. Besides, I don't know your name--people
mumble so when they introduce a man."
"I'm Ruhannah Carew."
"Carew," he repeated, while a crease came between his eyebrows. "Of
Brookhollow---- Oh, I know! Your father is the retired missionary--red
house facing the bridge."
"Yes."
"Certainly," he said, taking another look at her; "you're the little
girl daddy and I used to see across the fields when we were shooting
woodcock in the willows."
"I remember you," she said.
"I remember you!"
She coloured gratefully.
"Because," he added, "dad and I were always afraid you'd wander into
range and we'd pepper you from the bushes. You've grown a lot, haven't
you?" He had a nice, direct smile though his speech and manners were a
trifle breezy, confident, and sans façon. But he was at that
age--which succeeds the age of bumptiousness--with life and career
before him, attainment, realisation, success, everything the mystery
of life holds for a young man who has just flung open the gates and
who takes the magic road to the future with a stride instead of his
accustomed pace.