CHAPTER XLI.
USE OF COATS IN A STORM.
It was a very picturesque group seated that day beneath the golden trees; and the difference in the appearance of each member of the party made the effect more complete.
Redbud, with her mild, tender eyes, and gentle smile and sylvan costume, was the representative of the fine shepherdesses of former time, and wanted but a crook to worthily fill Marlow's ideal; for she had not quite
"A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs,—"
her slender waist was encircled by a crimson ribbon, quite as prettily embroidered as the zone of the old poet's fancy, and against her snowy neck the coral necklace which she wore was clearly outlined, rising and falling tranquilly, like May-buds woven by child-hands into a bright wreath, and launched on the surface of some limpid stream.
And Fanny—gay, mischievous Fanny, with her mad-cap countenance, and midnight eyes, and rippling, raven curls—Fanny looked like a young duchess taking her pleasure, for the sake of contrast, in the woods—far from ancestral halls, and laughing at the follies of the court. Her hair trained back—as Redbud's was—in the fashion called La Pompadour; her red-heeled rosetted shoes—her silken gown—all this was plainly the costume of a courtly maiden. Redbud was the country; Fanny, town.
Between Verty and Ralph, we need not say, the difference was as marked.
The one wild, primitive, picturesque, with the beauty of the woods.
The other richly dressed, with powdered hair and silk stockings.
This was the group which sat and laughed beneath the fine old tulip trees, and gazed with delight upon the splendid landscape, and were happy. Youth was theirs, and that sunshine of the breast which puts a spirit of joy in everything. They thought of the scene long years afterwards, and saw it bathed in the golden hues of memory; and sighed to think that those bright days and the child-faces had departed—faces lit up radiantly with so much tenderness and joy.
Do not all of us? Does the old laughter never ring again through all the brilliant past, so full of bright, and beautiful, and happy figures—figures which illustrated and advanced that past with such a glory as now lives not upon earth? Balder the beautiful is gone, but still Hermoder sees him through the gloom—only the form is dead, the love, and joy, and light of brilliant eyes remains, shrined in their memory. Thus, we would fain believe that no man loses what once made him happy—that for every one a tender figure rises up at times from that horizon, lit with blue and gold, called youth: some loving figure, with soft, tender smiles, and starlike eyes, and arms which beckon slowly to the weary traveller. The memory of the old youthful scenes and figures may be deadened by the inexorable world, but still the germ remains; and this old lost tradition of pure love, and joy, and youth, comes back again to bless us.
The young girls and their companions passed the hours very merrily upon the summit of the tall hill, from which the old border town was visible far below, its chimneys sending upward slender lines of smoke, which rose like blue and golden staves of olden banners, then were flattened, and so melted into air.
Winchester itself had slowly sunk into gloom, for the evening was coming on, and a storm also. The red light streamed from a mass of clouds in the west, which resembled some old feudal castle in flames; and the fiery furzes of the sunset only made the blackness of the mass more palpable.
Then this light gradually disappeared: a murky gloom settled down upon the conflagration, as of dying fires at midnight, and a cool wind from the mountains rose and died away, and rose again, and swept along in gusts, and shook the trees, making them grate and moan.
Verty rose to his feet.
"In five minutes we shall have a storm," he said. "Come, Redbud—and
Miss Fanny."
Even as he spoke, the far distance pushed a blinding mass toward them, and a dozen heavy drops began to fall.
"We cannot get back!" cried Ralph.
"But we can reach the house at the foot of the hill!" said Fanny.
"No time to lose!"
And so saying, Verty took Redbud's hand, and leaving Fanny to Ralph, hastened down the hill.
Before they had gone twenty steps, the thunder gust burst on them furiously.
The rain was blinding—terrible. It scudded along the hill-side, driven by the wind, with a fury which broke the boughs, snapped the strong rushes, and flooded everything.
Redbud, who was as brave a girl as ever lived, drew her chip hat closer on her brow, and laughed. Fanny laughed for company, but it was rather affected, and the gentlemen did not consider themselves called upon to do likewise.
"Oh, me!" cried Verty, "you'll be drenched, Redbud! I must do something for your shoulders. They are almost bare!"
And before Redbud could prevent him, the young man drew off his fur fringed coat and wrapped it round the girl's shoulders, with a tenderness which brought the color to her cheek.
Redbud in vain remonstrated—Verty was immovable; and to divert her, called her attention to the goings on of Ralph.
This young gentleman had no sooner seen Verty strip off his coat for Redbud, than with devoted gallantry he jerked off his own, and threw it over Miss Fanny; not over her shoulders only, but her head, completely blinding her: the two arms hanging down, indeed, like enormous ears from the young girl's cheeks.
Having achieved this feat, Mr. Ralph hurried on—followed Verty and Redbud over the log, treating Miss Fanny much after the fashion of the morning; and so in ten minutes they reached the house at the foot of the hill, and were sheltered.
Fanny overflowed with panting laughter as she turned and threw the coat back to Ralph.
"There, sir!" she cried, "there is your coat! How very gallant in you!
I shall never—no, sir, never forget your devotedness!"
And the young girl wrung the water from her curls, and laughed.
"Nothing more natural, my dear," said Ralph.
"Than what?"
"My devotedness."
"How?"
"Can you ask?"
"Yes, sir, I can."
"Would you have me a heathen?"
"A heathen!"
"Yes, Miss Fanny; the least which would be expected of a gentleman would be more than I have done, under the circumstances, and with the peculiar relationship between us.
"Oh, yes, cousinship!"
"No, madam, intended wedlock."
"Sir!"
"Come, don't blush so, my heart's delight," said Ralph, "and if the subject is disagreeable, that is, a reference to it in this public manner, I will say no more."
"Hum!"—
"There, now—"
"I think that your impudence—"
"Is very reasonable," said Ralph, filling up the sentence; "but suppose you dry your feet, and yourself generally, as Miss Redbud is doing. That is more profitable than a discussion with me."
This advice seemed excellent, and Fanny determined to follow it, though she did not yield in the tongue contest without a number of "hums!" which finally, however, died away like the mutterings of the storm without.
The good-humored old woman to whom the humble mansion belonged, had kindled a bundle of twigs in the large fire-place; and before the cheerful blaze the young girls and their cavaliers were soon seated, their wet garments smoking, and the owners of the garments laughing.
The good-humored old dame would have furnished them with a change, but this was declared unnecessary, as the storm seemed already exhausted, and they would, ere long, be able to continue their way.
Indeed, the storm had been one of those quick and violent outbursts of the sky, which seem to empty the clouds instantly almost, as though the pent up waters were shut in by a floodgate, shattered by the thunder and the lightning. Soon, only a few heavy drops continued to fall, and the setting sun, bursting in splendor from the western clouds, poised its red ball of fire upon the horizon, and poured a flood of crimson on the dancing streamlets, the glittering grass, and drenched foliage of the hill-side.
Redbud rose, smiling.
"I think we can go now," she said, "I am afraid to stay any longer—my clothes are very wet, and I have not health enough to risk losing any."
With which the girl, with another smile, tied the ribbon of her chip hat under her chin, and looked at Verty.
That gentleman rose.
"I wish my coat had been thicker," he said, "but I can't help it. Yes, yes, Redbud, indeed we must get back. It would'nt do for you to get sick."
"And me, sir!" said Fanny.
"You?" said Verty, smiling.
"Yes, sir; I suppose it would do for me?"
"I don't know."
"Hum!"
"I can tell you, dear," said Ralph, "and I assure you the thing would not answer under any circumstances. Come, let us follow Miss Redbud."
They all thanked the smiling old dame, and issuing from the cottage, took their way through the sparkling fields and along the wet paths toward home again. They reached the Bower of Nature just at twilight, and entering through the garden were about to pass in, when they were arrested by a spectacle on the rear portico, which brought a smile to every lip.
Mr. Jinks was on his knees before Miss Sallianna there.