The good priest had written it for him, as he did so want Rilly to know that, Heaven willing, he and his old mother would sail for America in the spring.
“It’s lonely I am for a look at me gal, an’ it’s lonely I am for me cabin down by the sea, an’ it’s lonely me cabin has been this long spell, closed there, a-waitin’ for me,” the letter ran.
The sympathetic young priest who had been scribe had written the letter just as the kindly old Irishman had dictated it, and it sounded so like her beloved Uncle Barney that, for a moment, it was hard for Muriel to keep from crying.
“’Twill be a different place that he’ll be findin’,” she thought, “with the lighthouse but a tumbled down heap of rocks and with grandfather gone. Oh, I’m that glad Uncle Barney’s coming. I’ll ask Uncle Lem to take me to Tunkett just as soon as they are back.”
Then Muriel opened the other envelope, which was addressed in a handwriting with which she was familiar, as Gene wrote very often to his “storm maiden.”
“Dear Rilla,” the lad had written, “such an adventure as I have had! At last the dull grey monotony of living in England has ceased, for I have met the most interesting man, and, for some reason unknown to me, he invites my companionship. I really can’t believe that I interest him, for all I do is listen while he talks so wonderfully about everything that is inside books and out. If there is one corner of this earth that he hasn’t visited, I can’t imagine where it is. Oh, yes, Tunkett! I don’t suppose he has ever been there. In fact, it’s such an out-of-the-way place I don’t suppose anybody ever would find it unless he happened to be born there, as Uncle Lem was, and I, of course, went to visit him. Did I hear you inquire, ‘Who is your new friend?’
“Muriel, I suppose I ought to be greatly impressed with the fact that he is a viscount. People over here treat him as though he were made of a very superior kind of clay, my mother among them, but the viscount himself isn’t a bit flattered by the adulation he receives. He calls it ‘tommyrot,’ and whenever there are social functions at the castle (honest Injun, Rilla, that’s what they call the turreted stone pile in which he lives), he retires to his rustic log cabin in the woods, which is so hedged in that strangers could not even guess that it was there unless they happened to stumble on it.
“I wish I could tell you about the man himself and do justice to him, but I simply can’t. He has the most boyish face I ever saw crowned with grey hair. He tells me that he is forty-five years old, but he seems nearer my age than any chap of twenty I ever met.
“The first time I met him he suggested a hike through Scotland. It seemed a good deal of an undertaking, for I wasn’t very strong (just beginning to take short walks), but every day I grew stronger, and what a week it was.
“The Viscount of Wainwater with a pack on his back was not recognized by anyone. The boy in his nature was very much in evidence that week. He sang as we tramped along the deserted highways and sometimes I knew that he was improvising. Then it was that I made a discovery. He is the Waine Waters whose vagabond poems so often appear in American magazines.
“One night we stopped at an out-of-the-way inn. We had been tramping over a snow-covered moor and, as we sat near the great fireplace where peat was burning, he began to scribble and at last he looked up and asked, ‘Shall I read it to you?’ I nodded, and, Muriel, that poem was a gem. It was called ‘The Moor in Winter,’ and told of the quiet trust that is in the heart of all nature, for, although the moor lies covered with snow, it is dreaming of the spring that is to bring back the bird song and the heather.
“I asked Waine (he told me to call him that) for a copy of the poem, and he gave it to me. I had planned sending it to you. I had it a week later when I returned. I took it to the library to show mother, but, finding that Monsieur Carnot and father were there, I turned away. I have never seen it since. I must have dropped it and the maid probably thought it merely a scrap and burned it. I’ll ask Waine for another copy some day, but just now, with his countess mother, he has gone away for a fortnight.
“Isn’t it about time that you were writing a first letter to your brother-friend,
“Gene Beavers.
“P. S.—I have never mentioned you to Waine, but if you are willing, I’d like to show him that copy of ‘The Lonely Pelican’ which Doctor Winslow sent me. Shall I?
“Y. B., F. G.”
Scarcely had Muriel finished reading this letter when Joy burst in with, “Rilla, Miss Gordon has called an assembly for two o’clock this afternoon. We are all so excited, for this is only done on very especial occasions. What do you suppose has happened?”
“I wonder if it has anything to do with the contest?” Faith said softly, as she and Muriel found unoccupied chairs near their three friends, who were already seated.
“My opinion is that Miss Gordon merely wishes to announce the name of the winner of the prize, and as we would not again be assembled until Monday, except in the dining hall and chapel, she has taken this method of bringing us together.” And Joy was right.
Miss Gordon’s smile, as she entered with Miss Humphrey and Miss Widdemere, was so pleasant that it at once quieted the fears of the senior girls that something had gone wrong.