GIPSY'S DARING.
"It is a fearful night; a feeble glare
Streams from the sick moon in the overclouded sky,
The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,
Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare.
What bark the madness of the waves will dare!"
—Byron.
ipsy was once more at Sunset Hall. Archie had escorted her home and then returned to Washington. He would have mentioned their engagement to the squire, and asked his consent to their union, but Gipsy said:
"No, you mustn't. I hate a fuss; and as I don't intend to be married for two or three years yet, it will be time enough to tell them all by and by."
So Archie, with a sigh, was forced to obey his capricious little love and go back, after making her promise to let him come down every month and see her; for she wouldn't write to him—it was "too much bother."
It began again to seem like old times at St. Mark's. There was Gipsy at Sunset Hall, keeping them all from dying of torpor, and astonishing the whole neighborhood by her mad freaks. There was Minnette—the proud, cold, but now beautiful Minnette—living alone at Deep Dale; for the doctor had gone from home on business. There was sweet Celeste, the Star of the Valley, in her little cottage home—the fairest, loveliest maiden the sun ever shone upon.
It was a lovely May morning. The air was made jocund with the songs of birds; the balmy breeze scarce rippled the surface of the bay, where the sunshine fell in golden glory.
Through the open doors and windows of Valley Cottage the bright May sunbeams fell warm and bright; they lingered in broad patches on the white floor, and touched gently the iron-gray locks of Miss Hagar, as she sat knitting in her leathern chair in the chimney-corner, as upright and gray as ever. Years seemed to pass on without touching her; for just as we first saw her at Lizzie Oranmore's bridal, the same does she appear to-day.
In the doorway stands a young girl, tall and graceful, dressed in soft gray muslin, fastened at her slender waist by a gold-colored belt. Can this young lady be our little, shy Celeste? Yes; here is the same superb form, the same dainty little head, with its wealth of pale-gold hair; the same clear, transparent complexion; the soft, dove-like eyes of blue; the broad, white queenly forehead; the little, rosy, smiling mouth. Yes, it is Celeste—celestial, truly, with the promise of her childhood more than fulfilled. The world and its flatterers—and she has heard many—have had no power to spoil her pure heart, and she has returned the same gentle, loving Celeste—the idol of all who know her, radiating light and beauty wherever she goes, a very angel of charity to the poor, and beloved and cherished by the rich. More hearts than Celeste likes to think of have been laid at her feet, to be gently and firmly, but sadly, refused; for that sound, unsullied heart has never yet been stirred by the words of man.
She stood in the doorway, gazing with parted lips and sparkling eyes on the balmy beauty of that bright spring morning, with a hymn of gratitude and love to the Author of all this beauty filling her mind.
Suddenly the sylvan silence of the spot was broken by the thunder of horse's hoofs, and the next instant Gipsy came bounding along upon the back of her favorite Mignonne.
"Good-morning, dear Gipsy," said Celeste, with her own bright smile, as she hastened to open the gate for her. "Have you been out, as usual, hunting this morning?"
"Yes, and there are the spoils," said Gipsy, throwing a well-filled game-bag on the ground. "I come like a true hunter—a leal knight of the gay greenwood—to lay them at the feet of my liege lady. I fancied a canvas-back duck and a bright-winged partridge would not come amiss this morning. I know my gallop has made me perfectly ravenous."
"You shall have one of them presently for breakfast," said Celeste, calling Curly, their little black maid-of-all-work. "Tie Mignonne there, and come in."
"By the way, Celeste, you don't seem to think it such an appalling act to shoot birds now as you used to," said Gipsy, springing from her horse; "it was once a crime of the first magnitude in your eyes."
"And I confess it seems a needless piece of cruelty to me still. I could scarcely do it if I were starving, I think."
"You always were—with reverence be it spoken—rather a coward, Celeste. Do you remember the day I shot the bird that Louis saved for you, and you fell fainting to the ground?" said Gipsy, laughing at the remembrance.
"Yes, I remember. I was rather an absurd little thing in those days," said Celeste, smiling. "How I did love that unlucky little bird!"
"Oh! that was because Louis gave it to you. There! don't blush. Apropos of Louis, I wonder where he is now?"
"In Rome, I suppose; at least Mrs. Oranmore told me so," replied Celeste.
"Yes; when last we heard from him he was studying the old masters, as he calls them—or the old grannies, as Guardy calls them. I shouldn't wonder if he became quite famous yet, and—oh, Celeste! where did you get that pretty chain and cross?" abruptly asked Gipsy, as her eye fell on the trinket.
"A present," said Celeste, smiling and blushing.
Gipsy's keen eyes were fixed on her face with so quizzical an expression, that the rose-hue deepened to crimson on her fair cheek as they passed into the house. And Gipsy went up and shook hands with Miss Hagar, and seated herself on a low stool at her feet, to relate the morning's adventures, while Celeste laid the cloth and set the table for breakfast.
After breakfast Gipsy rode off in the direction of Deep Dale. On entering the parlor she found Minnette sitting reading.
Minnette—now a tall, splendidly developed, womanly girl, with the proud, handsome face of her childhood—rose and welcomed her guest with cold courtesy. The old, fiery light lurked still in her black eyes; but the world had learned her to subdue it, and a coldly-polite reserve had taken the place of the violent outburst of passion so common in her tempestuous childhood.
"Don't you find it horribly dull here, Minnette?" said Gipsy, swallowing a rising yawn.
"No," replied Minnette; "I prefer solitude. There are few—none, perhaps—who sympathize with me, and in books I find companions."
"Well, I prefer less silent companions, for my part," said Gipsy. "I don't believe in making an old hermit or bookworm of myself for anybody."
"Every one to her taste," was the cold rejoinder.
"When do you expect your father home?" inquired Gipsy.
"To-night."
"Then he'll have a storm to herald his coming," said Gipsy, going to the window and scanning the heavens with a practiced eye.
"A storm—impossible!" said Minnette. "There is not a cloud in the sky."
"Nevertheless, we shall have a storm," said Gipsy. "I read the sky as truly as you do your books; and if he attempts to enter the bay to-night, I'm inclined to think that the first land he makes will be the bottom."
Minnette heard this intelligence with the utmost coolness, saying only:
"Indeed! I did not know you were such a judge of the weather. Well, probably, when they see the storm coming, they will put into some place until it is over."
"If they don't, I wouldn't give much for their chance of life," said Gipsy, as she arose to go; "but don't worry, Minnette—all may be right yet."
Minnette looked after her with a scornful smile. Fret! She had little intention of doing it; and five minutes after the departure of Gipsy she was so deeply immersed in her book as to forget everything else.
As the day wore on and evening approached, Gipsy's prophecy seemed about to prove true. Dark, leaden clouds rolled about the sky; the wind no longer blew in a steady breeze, but howled in wild gusts. The bosom of the bay was tossing and moaning wildly, heaving and plunging as though struggling madly in agony. Gipsy seized her telescope, and running up to one of the highest rooms in the old hall, swept an anxious glance across the troubled face of the deep. Far out, scarcely distinguishable from the white caps of the billows, she beheld the sail of a vessel driving, with frightful rapidity, toward the coast—driving toward its own doom; for, once near those foaming breakers covering the sunken reefs of rocks, no human being could save her. Gipsy stood gazing like one fascinated; and onward still the doomed bark drove—like a lost soul rushing to its own destruction.
Night and darkness at last shut out the ill-fated ship from her view. Leaving the house, she hastily made her way to the shore, and standing on a high, projecting peak, waited for the moon to rise, to view the scene of tempest and death.
It lifted its wan, spectral face at last from behind a bank of dull, black clouds, and lit up with its ghastly light the heaving sea and driving vessel. The tempest seemed momentarily increasing. The waves boiled, and seethed, and foamed, and lashed themselves in fury against the beetling rocks. And, holding by a projecting cliff, Gipsy stood surveying the scene. You might have thought her the spirit of the storm, looking on the tempest she had herself raised. Her black hair and thin dress streamed in the wind behind her, as she stood leaning forward, her little, wild, dark face looking strange and weird, with its blazing eyes, and cheeks burning with the mad excitement of the scene. Down below her, on the shore, a crowd of hardy fishermen were gathered, watching with straining eyes the gallant craft that in a few moments would be a broken ruin. On the deck could be plainly seen the crew, making most superhuman exertions to save themselves from the terrible fate impending over them.
All in vain! Ten minutes more and they would be dashed to pieces. Gipsy could endure the maddening sight no longer. Leaping from the cliff, she sprang down the rocks, like a mountain kid, and landed among the fishermen, who were too much accustomed to see her among them in scenes like this to be much startled by it now.
"Will you let them perish before your eyes?" she cried, wildly. "Are you men, to stand here idle in a time like this? Out with the boats; and save their lives!"
"Impossible, Miss Gipsy!" answered half a dozen voices. "No boat could live in such a surf."
"Oh, great heaven! And must they die miserably before your very eyes, without even making an effort to save them?" she exclaimed, passionately, wringing her hands. "Oh, that I were a man! Listen! Whoever will make the attempt shall receive five hundred dollars reward!"
Not one moved. Life could not be sacrificed for money.
"There she goes!" cried a voice.
Gipsy turned to look. A wild, prolonged shriek of mortal agony rose above the uproar of the storm, and the crew were left struggling for life in the boiling waves.
With a piercing cry, scarcely less anguished than their own, the mad girl bounded to the shore, pushed off a light batteau, seized the oars, and the next moment was dancing over the foaming waves.
A shout of fear and horror arose from the shore at the daring act. She heeded it not, as, bending all her energies to the task of guiding her frail bark through the tempestuous billows, she bent her whole strength to the oars.
Oh! surely her guardian angel steered that boat on its errand of mercy through the heaving, tempest-tossed sea! The salt spray seemed blinding her as it dashed in her face; but on she flew, now balanced for a moment on the top of a snowy hill of foam, the next, sunk down, down, as though it were never more to rise.
"Leap into the boat!" she cried, in a clear, shrill voice, that made itself heard, even above the storm.
Strong hands clutched it with the desperation of death, and two heavy bodies rolled violently in. The weight nearly overset the light skiff; but, bending her body to the oars, she righted it again.
"Where are the rest?" she exclaimed, wildly.
"All gone to the bottom. Give me the oars!" cried a voice.
She felt herself lifted from where she sat, placed gently in the bottom of the boat, and then all consciousness left her, and, overcome by the excitement, she fainted where she lay.
When she again opened her eyes she was lying in the arms of some one on the shore, with a circle of troubled, anxious faces around her. She sprang up wildly.
"Are they saved?" she exclaimed, looking around.
"Yes; thanks to your heroism, our lives are preserved," said a voice beside her.
She turned hastily round. It was Doctor Nicholas Wiseman. Another form lay stark and rigid on the sand, with men bending over him.
A deadly sickness came over Gipsy—she knew not why it was. She turned away, with a violent shudder, from his outstretched hand, and bent over the still form on the sand. All made way for her with respectful deference; and she knelt beside him and looked in his face. He was a boy—a mere youth, but singularly handsome, with a look of deep repose on his almost beautiful face.
"Is he dead?" she cried, in a voice of piercing anguish.
"No; only stunned," said the doctor, coming over and feeling his pulse.
"Take him to Sunset Hall, then," said Gipsy, turning to some of the men standing by.
A shutter was procured, and the senseless form of the lad placed upon it, and, raising it on their shoulders, they bore him in the direction of the old mansion-house.
Doctor Wiseman went toward his own home. And Gipsy, the free mountain maid, leaped up the rocks, feeling, for the first time in her life, sick and giddy. Oh! better, far better for her had they but perished in the seething waves!