How Gil Carr lit the Lamps of Love.
Another year slipped by and Gil’s ship had made a couple more voyages with Wat Kilby at the helm, for Culverin Carr had stayed at home, the helper and adviser of Jeremiah Cobbe. The Pool-house had risen again from its ashes, stone for stone, beam for beam, in spite of the bitter curse fulminated against those who should restore it. The aspect of age could not be given to the place, but it was a labour of love on the founder’s part to consult with Gil how they should get that clump of roses, that high cluster of clematis, and those bright flowers to grow beneath the window as of old.
Wealthy as he was, the founder could replace many things destroyed by the calamity that befel his house, and with so zealous a treatment it was wonderful how nearly they brought the new house in furniture and surroundings to resemble the old.
At last they paused, feeling that there was nothing more to do, and the two strong men sat at the table in the big parlour, gazing the one into the other’s face, as if to ask for hope and friendly assurance of success. For on the next day Mace was to be brought to the new house, and they both felt that, if her mind were to be restored, they must see some symptoms in the change.
The founder begged Gil to help him bring his child home once more, but he bluntly refused.
“Nay,” he said; “I will not come. Take her thyself. Thou art her father, and God speed thee in the task.”
It was a glorious summer day at the end of July, when the flowers were blooming, and the whole air was redolent with Nature’s sweetest scents. The Pool was pure as crystal, and amidst the broad green leaves the silver chalices of the water-lilies swam upon the surface, where the herons waded, and the gorgeous kingfisher darted across the glassy mirror.
In the old garden the flowers drooped their heads in the heat which quivered over the grassy meads, while the forest-trees were silent in the glowing sunshine. No leaf moved, no zephyr played in the dark shades, but lizard and glistening beetle darted here and there, where the sandstone peered out amidst the heaths and ferns.
Mace suffered herself to be led by her father from the cottage they had made their home; but she heeded not the faces at the window and door, nor heard the pitying words spoken concerning her by the workpeople who had eaten her father’s bread for years.