Then, characteristically she thought of a postscript. “And oh, please let somebody find out that Ilse’s mother didn’t do that.”
She lay very still. The light on the water began to turn warm gold and rose. A great pine on a bluff in front of her overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the amber splendour behind it—a part of the beauty of the beautiful world that was slipping away from her. The chill of the evening gulf breeze began to creep over her. Once a bit of earth broke off at her side and went down—Emily heard the thud of the little pebbles in it on the boulders below. The portion upon which one of her legs lay was quite loose and pendent also. She knew it might break off, too, at any moment. It would be very dreadful to be there when it got dark. She could see the big spray of farewell-summer that had lured her to her doom, waving unplucked above her, wonderfully purple and lovely.
Then, beside it, she saw a man’s face looking down at her!
She heard him say, “My God!” softly to himself. She saw that he was slight and that one shoulder was a trifle higher than the other. This must be Dean Priest—Jarback Priest. Emily dared not call to him. She lay still and her great, grey-purple eyes said, “Save me.”
“How can I help you?” said Dean Priest hoarsely, as if to himself. “I cannot reach you—and it looks as if the slightest touch or jar would send that broken earth over the brink. I must go for a rope—and to leave you here alone—like this. Can you wait, child?”
“Yes,” breathed Emily. She smiled at him to encourage him—the little soft smile that began at the corners of her mouth and spread over her face. Dean Priest never forgot that smile—and the steadfast child-eyes looking out through it from the little face that seemed so perilously near the brink.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said. “I can’t go very fast—I’m a bit lame, you see. But don’t be frightened—I’ll save you. I’ll leave my dog to keep you company. Here, Tweed.”
He whistled—a great, tawny-gold dog came in sight.
“Sit right there, Tweed, till I come back. Don’t stir a paw—don’t wag a tail—talk to her only with your eyes.”
Tweed sat down obediently and Dean Priest disappeared.
Emily lay there and dramatized the whole incident for her Jimmy-book. She was a little frightened still, but not too frightened to see herself writing it all out the next day. It would be quite a thrilling bit.
She liked to know the big dog was there. She was not so learned in lore of dogs as in lore of cats. But he looked very human and trusty watching her with great kindly eyes. A grey kitten was an adorable thing—but a grey kitten would not have sat there and encouraged her. “I believe,” thought Emily, “that a dog is better than a cat when you’re in trouble.”
It was half an hour before Dean Priest returned.
“Thank God you haven’t gone over,” he muttered. “I hadn’t to go as far as I feared—I found a rope in an empty boat up-shore and took it. And now—if I drop the rope down to you, are you strong enough to hold it while the earth goes and then hang on while I pull you up?”
“I’ll try,” said Emily.
Dean Priest knotted a loop at the end and slid it down to her. Then he wound the rope around the trunk of a heavy fir.
“Now,” he said.
Emily said inwardly, “Dear God, please—” and caught the swaying loop. The next moment the full weight of her body swung from it, for at her first movement the broken soil beneath her slipped down—slipped over. Dean Priest sickened and shivered. Could she cling to the rope while he drew her up?
Then he saw she had got a little knee-hold on the narrow shelf. Carefully he drew on the rope. Emily, full of pluck, helped him by digging her toes into the crumbling bank. In a moment she was within his reach. He grasped her arms and pulled her up beside him into safety. As he lifted her past the farewell-summer Emily reached out her hand and broke off the spray.
“I’ve got it, anyhow,” she said jubilantly. Then she remembered her manners. “I’m much obliged to you. You saved my life. And—and—I think I’ll sit down a moment. My legs feel funny and trembly.”
Emily sat down, all at once more shaky than she had been through all the danger. Dean Priest leaned against the gnarled old fir. He seemed “trembly” too. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Emily looked curiously at him. She had learned a good deal about him from Aunt Nancy’s casual remarks—not always good-natured remarks, for Aunt Nancy did not wholly like him, it seemed. She always called him “Jarback” rather contemptuously, while Caroline scrupulously called him Dean. Emily knew he had been to college, that he was thirty-six years old—which to Emily seemed a venerable age—and well-off; that he had a malformed shoulder and limped slightly; that he cared for nothing save books nor ever had; that he lived with an older brother and travelled a great deal; and that the whole Priest clan stood somewhat in awe of his ironic tongue. Aunt Nancy had called him a “cynic.” Emily did not know what a cynic was but it sounded interesting. She looked him over carefully and saw that he had delicate, pale features and tawny-brown hair. His lips were thin and sensitive, with a whimsical curve. She liked his mouth. Had she been older she would have known why—because it connoted strength and tenderness and humour.
In spite of his twisted shoulder there was about him a certain aloof
