"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the sound of her rippling laughter.
I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule.
"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills.
Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to do more than murmur a weary assent.
They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernon tethered the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like a gentle lullaby.
I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed beside the bridge.
Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose hardly to the jerking downhill motion.
Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward glance in the direction of the chariot.
When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give him satisfaction.
"For what?" said the latter with a sneer.