PROLOGUE.
It was an impudent thing to do!
No matter how scorching the July sun, no matter how alluring the thought of paddling out to ascertain whether the richly wooded lake-side looked equally lovely from the water; no matter how cunningly old Satan had spread his snare of mischief "for idle hands to do," by guiding me to the very spot where the little boat lay moored at the water's edge; no matter with what sophistry these, and many other excuses which I pleaded to a pricking conscience, seemed to mitigate the offence, the fact remains that I acted in a way which was as impudent as it was unpardonable.
The owner of the property generously allowed the public to use a particular footpath through the park. Hence my offence in straying from the permitted footpath and in exploring unpermitted copses and woodlands, until I came to this beautiful sheet of water, was for that very reason all the more graceless and heinous.
But in July, when the holiday spirit is in one's blood, and when all the world is holiday-making with us, the conventionalities exist only to be set aside. Chaste matrons who, in chill December, would consider that to exhibit more than two inches of stocking above the ankle would be to pass the high-water mark of propriety, and even, to save a new skirt from being muddied, would hesitate to hitch that garment higher by another inch, will, in demoralising July, discard these same stockings altogether, and disport and display themselves, knee-bare, with never a blush, upon the beach at Margate or at Brighton.
And I who, when in my proper mind and in dress-coated, white-chokered garb, would not so much as pass a lady in the stalls of a theatre without first apologising for troubling her and asking for her permission, acted on this occasion, and under the demoralising spell of holiday-making and midsummer madness, as any other bounder would act on a Bank Holiday. No hand had pulled aside the drawn lodge-blind to gaze at the intruder as I entered the park gates; no surly keeper had pointed me to a notice board, warning all and sundry that the public must keep to the footpath, as I strolled along; no tradesman's cart had rattled briskly up the drive to receive or to deliver orders; and when between an avenue of trees I caught a glimpse of the house, it looked so shuttered and sleepy, that I was persuaded "the family"—whoever the family might be—was away, and that none would come to warn me of my trespass. Then the path I had taken, between the trees, had led me down to the water's edge and to the very spot where the boat lay moored.
Thrusting conscience and the conventionalities aside, I seated myself and sculled lightly out to the middle of the lake. For a good half-hour I pulled hither and thither as my fancy prompted, and as the various views to be obtained from the water seemed most alluringly to open; and then, shipping the sculls, I lay down full length in the bottom of the boat, my arm under my head as a pillow, and my face turned skyward to the sun.
I suppose I must have dropped off into a doze, from which I was aroused by a slight rippling of the water. Being only half awake I did not trouble myself greatly about the matter. "A swan passing," I murmured sleepily; "or possibly a water-rat or moor-hen. Let 'em pass. They're quite welcome, and I'm too comfortable to stir."
But stirred I soon was, and to some purpose. Had my boat been lying at the wooded lake-side, instead of in the centre of this beautiful sheet of water, I should have thought at first that a wind-blown branch of July's own roses had dipped down to rest her unopened blossoms upon the frail craft's side. For suddenly, upon the gunwale of the boat—just as if a handful of blush rose-buds had shyly peeped over—there appeared four of the tiniest, daintiest, most exquisitely tapered finger-tips that ever were seen upon mortal hand. Pink, petite, faultlessly formed and finely proportioned, with pearly, oval nails, as symmetrically cut, as perfectly set and polished as rare opals, the finger-tips upon which I looked were so lovely that a king might have craved, as a royal boon, permission to stoop his lips to kiss them. In all the wide world I was ready to swear there was only one other set of finger-tips as beautiful, and the very next instant that other set, like love-bird hastening to perch beside its mate, was laid upon the edge of the boat, which now began to rock sideways, as if someone in the water were working up impetus for a spring.
"Lazy bones! lazy bones! Wake up! wake up!" cried a merry voice; and then—Venus rising from the foam was not half so beautiful—there bobbed up, framed in clinging golden hair, at the side of the boat, the fairest young face, the most lovely head and neck and shoulders I have ever seen.