CHAPTER XVII AN OLD ENEMY
Pushing rudely between the two girls, the stranger succeeded, by means ofa skillful bit of elbow play, in knocking the souvenirs out of theirhands. As if to avoid stepping on the scattered berries and flowers, hetook a couple of quick side steps, planting his huge feet directly uponthem, and thereby ruining them completely. It was all done so quicklythat the girls hardly realized what had happened until they stood lookingdown at the remains of many days of labor.
Desire was quite speechless, and seemed momentarily paralyzed. Not soPriscilla, whose quick eyes followed the stranger, striding away over oneof the bridges in the Garden.
"Dissy," she whispered, "it's that _same man_."
"What _same man_?"
"The one who fought Jack."
"It does _look_ a lot like him, but--"
"It's him all right! The mean old pig!"
"Why, Prissy! It was an accident."
"Wasn't either, and now we can't make any money to take to Jack."Excitedly she burst into tears.
"Don't, dear," begged Desire. "We mustn't act like babies every timesomething goes wrong. We'll just start over again. These didn't costanything, and it will be easy to make new ones."
"What's the trouble?" asked Jack, who had come up behind them.
Both girls explained at once.
"Where's the fellow now?" demanded the boy, his jaw set, his eyesflashing.
"He went over that bridge," pointed Priscilla.
"Don't bother about him," urged Desire. "You might get arrested. Let's goback to the wagon."
Struggling between the wish to avenge the wrong to his little sisters,and the conviction that it was perhaps wiser to avoid conflict in astrange city, he turned abruptly away from the big iron gates.
"Where are we going next?" asked Desire, as they walked along the streettoward the place where the wagon had been left.
"I bought all the stock we need, and I thought, since Simon always did,we'd go on down the South Shore a ways and then come back here to startfor--"
"_Home!_" concluded Desire, "and what fun we'll have settling down init."
"More fun in a wag'n," declared Rene.
"You'd holler all right, when the snow blew in on you," said Priscilla.
Jack hardly heard what they were saying, so puzzled and disturbed was heover the reappearance of his enemy. Was the man following them, or wasthe meeting purely accidental? Had he been tampering with the horses thenight Priscilla roused them? If the fellow were bent on revenge, theywere likely to suffer from the effects of his anger and jealousy almostany time.
The next morning they were following the very irregular South Shore linealong the Atlantic; past ragged points, around deep bays, through tanglesof woodland, then back beside the yellow sands again. Numerous offshoreislands looked so inviting that Priscilla was always wishing they coulddrive out to them. As they rounded St. Margaret's Bay, the sunshine wasbrilliant; but almost without warning, a mile farther on, they werecompletely enveloped in fog which cut off all view of the ocean.
"Do be very careful, Jack," pleaded Desire nervously, as they almost felttheir way around an especially blind curve. "Someone might run into us."
They reached Chester in safety, and spent some time looking about thatbusy little town. The souvenir shop up the hill above the Lovett Houseespecially attracted Priscilla, and it was with great reluctance that sheleft it.
"I'd like to have money enough to buy everything I wanted there," shesaid, looking longingly back at it.
In a few minutes they missed Rene, who had been lagging along behindthem.
"That boy is hopeless," groaned Jack, as they retraced their steps tolook for him.
Not very far back they discovered him, leaning over the edge of acobblestone well, trying to lower the heavy bucket.
"I was thirsty," he explained, as Jack detached him.
"But you might have fallen in!" said Desire severely.
"I'll tell you what we can do," proposed Priscilla; "tie a rope to him,like you do to a little dog, and I'll lead him. I saw a lady at Halifaxwith a little boy fastened that way,--"
The proposal called forth a howl from Rene.
"Won't be tied like a dog! Won't have Prissy lead me!"
"Well, let's go on now before we get into any more difficulties," saidJack, starting for the shed where he had left the wagon.
"That is Mahone Bay," he told them, as they gazed out over the large armof the ocean upon which Chester is located; "and all this section wasonce a great retreat for pirates. There are so many islands where theyhid their booty, and so many little bays and inlets where they could takerefuge if pursued."
"Want to go out there and see pirates," announced Rene, as Jack tightenedthe reins, and Dolly and Dapple began to move.
"There are no pirates there now," said Priscilla in a disgusted tone.
"Go and see. _I'm_ going to be a pirate when I grow up. I think they're_fine_."
"It's a good thing you didn't give us that piece of information before,Jack," laughed Desire, "or we should have been swimming out to findRenny."
Not very far beyond Chester, they ran into fog again. The road waswinding, and very much up and down hill; and as they were about to rounda curve near Lunenburg, a heavy automobile loomed up suddenly at theirleft, out of the grey blanket which enfolded the landscape.