As there was no evening service, an evening stroll in Nature’s great temple around them was proposed instead, for which the young people were ready enough after the long, quiet day of rest. Mrs. Sandford, who had not yet recovered from the fatigue of so incessant travelling, preferring to sit on the veranda with her book,—the latter taking the place of her knitting-needles, which lately had had an unusual respite. Nellie Armstrong, however, who had a headache, elected to stay with her, so the rest started, perhaps all the more satisfied, pairing off naturally—Mr. Winthrop, of course, with Kate; Jack Armstrong with Flora; while Hugh and May were left as inevitable companions. May, as on some similar occasions, felt at first slightly uncomfortable; but this feeling soon wore off, for Hugh and she had become excellent comrades, and now found many subjects for conversation; and she felt that he had by this time accepted Mr. Winthrop as a permanent factor in the situation, and was determined to make the best of it. And May in her heart esteemed him all the more for the cheerfulness with which he had adapted himself to the inevitable!
They walked, by a rambling footpath, along the sandy, reedy shore of the bay, until they had at length to betake themselves to the ordinary road, striking it close to a picturesque old mill, with a little waterfall plashing over the moss-grown old waterwheel, just as she had so often seen it in pictures of English scenery. They reached the French village of Murray Bay, and passed close to the white church which had made the centre of the picture in the distance, and the pretty little Presbytère, with its shady garden-walks overlooking the river, on one of which May discerned a black-cassocked figure, in whom she immediately conjured up a modern Père La Brosse. Then on, past the little brown French houses, with their steep roofs and balconies, and tidy, if bare, exteriors,—each one apparently possessing its great wooden cupboard, and large box stove for the cold winter days. Crossing the bridge over the Murray, from which there was a lovely view up the valley, into the heart of the hills, they held on their way up the wooded slope beyond, past a little memorial chapel under the shadowing pines, which interested the girls so much that they declared they must get the key and see the interior some day; and then onward by an open, breezy bit of road, skirting on one side undulating woods, gilded by slanting sunlight, and on the other affording glimpses of pleasant manorial residences between them and the river. And then they came out on the high table-land of the “Cap,” from whence they could see the wide river expanse, now taking on soft hues of rose, and purple, and opal, and the far distant hills beyond, also glorified by the sunset.
But May’s steps had begun to flag a little, and her cheek to grow rather pale, and Hugh said that he was sure she was tired, and proposed that they should go no farther, but take a rest until the others returned. May looked rather wistfully at Kate and Flora, still stepping on, evidently unwearied. But although much stronger than when she had left home, May was not so strong, yet, as the other two, and it was of no use to pretend that she was not very tired.
“Let us walk back to that pine-crested bluff,” said Hugh. “There we can sit quite comfortably till the others come back.”
They strolled back very slowly, and it occurred to May, à propos of her own fatigue, how much more Hugh could stand than he could have done a month ago; and how seldom even “Aunt Bella” now worried him with well-meant exhortations to take extra care. The outdoor life of the past weeks had certainly done wonders for this sunburnt, active young man, with elastic step and firm tread, who seemed so different a being from the pale and somewhat languid stranger to whom she had been first introduced. But she soon forgot everything else in the fair scene that lay at their feet, half screened by the pine boughs that drooped above them; for no fairer view had greeted her during the whole journey. Opposite, across the blue bay below them, lay Point au Pic, with its pier and its monumental rock, its straggling cottages, and the long, hilly, wooded ridge that swept round the corner of the bay on the other side. To their left lay the broad, sunset-flushed river, with the wavy line of delicate hues beyond it. The two watched the lovely glow of color for some time in silence. At last, when the scene was swiftly taking on the grayness of evening, Hugh remarked:
“How many lovely evenings we have seen! And this seems almost the loveliest of all.”
“Yes. It almost makes one sad to think that they are nearly all past,”—she replied, with a little wistful sigh.
“I don’t know that it should, however,” replied Hugh. “We can’t lose their memories and their influences. That seems to become part of our being, and we shall always be the richer for it. You know ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ Do you know,” he continued, after a pause, as May did not reply, “this great river on which we have been wandering so long, seems to me to present a very fair parable of human life. It comes, like Wordsworth’s version of our infancy, out of the mysterious majesty of Niagara, and that great sea-like lake. Then it has its tranquil sunny morning amid the lovely mazes of the Thousand Islands, which, like ourselves, it seems reluctant to forsake, for the more work-a-day rural stretch below. Then comes the strenuous time of conflict,—the ‘sturm und drang’ period of the rapids, and then the calm strength, the gradual expansion, the growing dignity of a noble life, till at last we have this exquisite sunset, glorifying a river that is swiftly passing on, to lose itself in the great ‘silent sea,’ symbolizing the beauty of the same rich and noble life, passing away from its old familiar shores to lose itself in the boundlessness of eternity.”
“I think you have got material for another poem there,” May observed, smiling, though touched by the emotion which seemed to have carried him on unconsciously. She and Hugh had got into the way of talking about his literary endeavors. There was another pause, and then Hugh looked up from his note-book, into which he had been looking.
“Do you recollect,” he asked, “a lovely morning we had, just after coming to Sumach Lodge?”